[Article/Copyright] Scope of Protection for Works of Pictorial Expression: The Professor Illustration Case (Emi Tsubata, (2009))
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Article type: Publication review
Category: Copyright
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First published on this website: 2026-11-01
Display and classification checked: November 2, 2026
Originally published on Ameblo: 2025-05-18 (Japan time). Full English translation.
[Article/Copyright] Scope of Protection for Works of Pictorial Expression: The Professor Illustration Case (Emi Tsubata, Intellectual Property Law and Policy Journal, Vol. 24 (2009))
Tokyo District Court, 2006 (Wa) 16899
This judgment held that the shared portions lacked creativity.
— Considering how closely the two works resemble each other, and the particular circumstances that the defendant's video was originally an OEM version of the plaintiff's video but the defendant continued using the character after ending the OEM agreement, might infringement have been found?
(Excerpt from the court's reasoning)
“The feature of depicting a plump, elderly man wearing a mortarboard and gown and sporting a mustache or the like is merely an idea …. The remaining specific expressions identified as common to the plaintiff's and defendant's professor designs—approximately two-heads-tall proportions emphasizing the upper body including the head, with the lower body depicted as large shoes visible below the gown's hem; a bottom-heavy trapezoidal face with round cheeks, a centrally positioned nose and a Kaiser mustache extending from it; vertically elongated oval eyes approximately the same width as the nose, eyebrows immediately above both eyes, no depicted neck or ears, and hair bulging at the sides of the head—are extremely commonplace and cannot be regarded as creative expression. The two are identical only in ideas that are not expression or in portions lacking creativity in expression.”
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