Osaka District Court, 2003 (Wa) 10959 [Aluminum-Based Sputtering Target Material] <Yamada>
更新日：2 日前
Article information
Article type: Case note
Category: Patents
Topics: Numerical limitations and parameters
First published on this website: 2026-11-01
Display and classification checked: November 2, 2026
Originally published on Ameblo: 2024-07-10 (Japan time). Full English translation.
Osaka District Court, 2003 (Wa) 10959 [Aluminum-Based Sputtering Target Material] <Yamada>
To determine whether a target material satisfies a numerical limitation, if it is homogeneous, satisfaction can be proved by observing part of the microstructure of the product concerned, some of the products, or offcuts.
(However, this was in the context of a prior-use invention.)
Cf. 2023 (Ne) 10026
(Excerpt from the court's reasoning)
…To determine whether a target material satisfies …, it is sufficient to observe the microstructure of a portion, without observing its entire surface…. Furthermore, where multiple target materials are manufactured using the same manufacturing method and conditions, whether … is satisfied by the other target materials as well can be determined from the observation of some of them. Moreover, if offcuts generated during manufacture can be said to have a microstructure substantially homogeneous with that of target materials manufactured from the same parent rolled plate, observations of those offcuts can be used to determine whether … is satisfied by the target materials manufactured from that same parent rolled plate…. This is because, in industrial practice, observing the microstructure over the entire surface area of target materials that become products … using an optical microscope must be considered practically impossible in the first place. Moreover, observing a target material's microstructure with an optical microscope involves destructive inspection, including polishing its surface …; performing such inspection on a product before shipment would make it unshippable. Thus, it should be understood that observing only part of the surface of some of the multiple final products manufactured using the same method and conditions suffices for microstructural observation. …Even offcuts, insofar as their microstructure is substantially homogeneous with that of the target material that became the product, do not differ in essence from samples obtained from the product target material. Accordingly, observing such offcuts can also be used to determine whether … is satisfied by the final-product target material….
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The first-published date remains unchanged. Display maintenance, classification changes, related-article updates, and text corrections are recorded separately.
November 1, 2026: First published on this website.
November 2, 2026: Added article information, classification, topics, language navigation, related articles where the same case was confirmed, consultation guidance, and SEO. The original text and first-published date were preserved.
