[Copyright] Osaka District Court, Case No. 2025 (Wa) 3632

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Article information

Article type: Case note

Display and classification checked: 2026-09-30

Categories: Copyright

Topics: Copyrightability / Creators and inventors / Proof of infringement

Published on this website: 2026-09-29

[Copyright] Osaka District Court, Case No. 2025 (Wa) 3632

(Presiding Judge Matsuami)

The plaintiff, a former professor at Tokushima University, alleged that the defendant's program was the plaintiff's copyrighted work or a jointly owned copyrighted work.

⇒ The very existence of the "plaintiff's program" was not established. The plaintiff lost.

1. It must be said that what was created in the first place is entirely unclear, and the existence of the "plaintiff's program" as a copyrighted work cannot be recognized.

2. As to the paper in Exhibit Ko 1, it "merely describes the purpose of the 'plaintiff's program,' the formulas used in it, application examples, etc."; "leaving aside the program's purpose and design concept, it is also unclear how the plaintiff specifically participated in the design and implementation of the program itself."

(Quotations are translations.)

https://lnkd.in/gTgBBwjM

https://lnkd.in/gjBDwUyZ

hanrei-pdf-95375.pdf — courts.go.jp

Originally posted on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7510141463293239296/

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Updates and corrections

This log starts on 30 September 2026. Display and classification checks are distinct from a review of the legal analysis.

2026-09-30 — Presentation update: added the article type, this change log and a link to consultation options. The existing article text was preserved.

2026-10-01 | Name notation: replaced verified Japanese-script personal names with Roman-letter forms in this English article and its navigation. Legal analysis and original publication date unchanged.

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