IP High Court, Reiwa 6 (Ne) 10010 [Women's clothing] <Presiding Judge Nakahira>
Updated: 3 days ago
Article information
Article type: Case note
Category: Patents
Topics: Inventive step, Claim interpretation, Patent corrections
First published on this website: October 2, 2026
Case number (as stated in the source): Reiwa 6 (Ne) 10010
Display and classification checked: October 2, 2026 (not a re-review of the legal analysis)
IP High Court, Reiwa 6 (Ne) 10010 [Women's clothing] <Presiding Judge Nakahira>
* The first-instance judgment finding patent infringement was upheld.
* A new invalidity ground raised in the statement of reasons for appeal was held untimely, although the court also considered its merits.
Satisfaction of claim elements
“Connecting while…” means a structure having both a connecting function and an adjustment function. It does not require adjustment while maintaining the connected state, as the appellant argued.
“Connection width” means the amount of overlap in the horizontal direction of the torso.
Invalidity ground
The argument based on Otsu 31 was an untimely means of attack or defense, but the court considered it to avoid delaying the litigation.
⇒ Otsu 31 covers and compresses the entire breasts to restrict movement. The claimed invention covers only the sides of the bust and draws them together from left and right. Their mechanisms and structures clearly differ.
There is also a factor discouraging modification from covering the entire breasts to covering only their sides. Inventive step was not denied.
Judgment excerpt (abridged):
The new invalidity ground was raised on February 6, 2024. In the first-instance proceedings, the defendant had already asserted invalidity based on Otsu 8 combined with well-known techniques or Otsu 9 in October 2021, added lack of novelty based on Otsu 8 in March 2022, and added an inventive-step argument combining Otsu 8 and Otsu 10 in May 2022. Further rebuttal followed in August 2022.
On August 31, 2022, after the parties had exhausted their infringement arguments and evidence, the court moved to damages. The defendant stated that it had no further arguments or evidence when oral argument closed on September 22, 2023.
Given this history, the new appellate ground was untimely and the appellant was grossly negligent in submitting it late, so ordinarily it should have been rejected. However, the appellee had submitted an alternative rebuttal, and the appellant made no further reply before the close of oral argument. To that extent, considering the ground would not delay completion of the litigation.
Original article: https://lnkd.in/eYid_i3N
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Update and correction history
Substantive corrections and supplements are recorded separately from classification, related-article, and display maintenance.
October 2, 2026: First publication of the author's LinkedIn text. Article type, classification, issue tags, source, and consultation guide were added.
Consultation and inquiries
October 2, 2026: Updated topic tags.
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