[Trademarks] IP High Court, Reiwa 6 (Gyo-Ke) No. 10061 — “CONART” (Judge Honda)
Updated: 2 days ago
Article information
Article type: Case note
Category: Trademarks
Topics: Examination and appeal practice、Contracts
First published on this site: 2026-10-10
Display/classification checked: 2026-10-10
[Trademarks] IP High Court, Reiwa 6 (Gyo-Ke) No. 10061 — “CONART” (Judge Honda)
*Take care with jointly owned trademarks!
The trademark was jointly owned by the plaintiff (Raffles Global) and Japan Raffles.
The JPO decision found that only Japan Raffles had entered into the license agreement with the non-exclusive licensee, and that the co-owner’s consent had not been established.
The court found that the plaintiff had entrusted management to Japan Raffles. Registration of Trademark C, which was identical in terms of generally accepted social norms to the mark used, was not canceled.
(Excerpt from the judgment, translated)
Although the plaintiff was not a party to the license agreement between Raffles and A-style, the agreement expressly stated that the plaintiff had entrusted management of its Japanese trademark rights to Raffles and that Raffles was contracting pursuant to that entrustment. In addition, statements by the plaintiff’s representative and other materials indicate that the agreements had been concluded solely by Raffles’ representative with the plaintiff’s consent, and nothing in their contents is particularly implausible. Furthermore, 50% of the amounts recognized as royalties under the license agreement were recorded as accounts payable in the financial statements and remitted overseas to the plaintiff.
These circumstances establish that the plaintiff authorized the grant of the license when Raffles entered into the agreement with A-style. It can readily be found that Raffles granted A-style a non-exclusive trademark license with the consent of the plaintiff, the co-owner of the trademark rights (Trademark Act Article 35; Patent Act Article 73(3)).
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Original article (2025-09-08):
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2026-10-10: First published the LinkedIn original on this site and set the classification, article information, and consultation link.
2026-10-10: Aligned the translation link, canonical URL and hreflang with the verified public URLs.
2026-10-10: Updated related-article links. The original article text was not changed.
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