[Trademarks / Contracts] Osaka District Court, Reiwa 4 (Wa) 7393, “MICHEL JURDAIN” <Judge Takemiya>
更新日：10月9日
Article information
Article type: Case note
Categories: Trademarks
Issues: Trademark infringement, Contract interpretation
Published on website: 2026-10-08
Display and classification checked: 2026-10-08
[Trademarks / Contracts] Osaka District Court, Reiwa 4 (Wa) 7393, “MICHEL JURDAIN” <Judge Takemiya>
* The injunction claim was partly granted!!
* The bankruptcy trustee's understanding in separate bankruptcy proceedings was rejected.
<Operative part of the judgment, translated>
“The defendants shall not affix any of the marks listed in Schedule 2 to watches, their packaging boxes, or hang tags; or transfer, display for transfer, possess, export, import, or offer through telecommunications networks watches bearing those marks or watches whose packaging boxes or hang tags bear those marks (excluding watches with the product numbers listed in Schedule 7, the list of defendant products manufactured by other companies, that do not have packaging boxes or hang tags bearing those marks).”
An exclusive ordinary trademark license had been granted.
⇒ Claims for royalties for January and February 2018 had been waived, so termination for nonpayment was not established. The bankruptcy trustee's assessment was not based on a detailed investigation and did not establish the absence of a license.
For products made by other companies, the defendant obtained them in unmarked boxes, then made its own boxes bearing similar marks and sold the products in those boxes. The contract prohibited repackaging; doing so without authority infringed the trademark rights.
(Excerpt from the judgment, translated)
The plaintiffs point out that Elim Trading did not pay royalties for January and February 2018 and that its trustee in separate bankruptcy proceedings proceeded on the premise that Elim Trading had no license as of January 18, 2018.
However, Andrews waived the claims for those royalties (Exhibit Otsu 16). It cannot therefore be found that the licensing agreement had been terminated for their nonpayment.
It is true that the trustee's first report on key aspects of the administration, dated May 28, 2018, stated that Elim Trading transferred the defendant products to defendant Marushu around the end of January, and Marushu unilaterally valued them at 50% of book value and offset that amount against its trade receivables. The trustee regarded this as payment in kind but did not treat it as subject to avoidance, considering the difficulty of selling the goods because of the trademark-license issue (Exhibit Ko 14). However, the trustee had not investigated the contractual relationship between Elim Trading and Andrews in detail. A purchaser of movable property had merely said, upon appraisal, that a license was needed. The trustee's assessment therefore does not, in itself, establish that Elim Trading had not been granted a license.
Original article (2025-10-18):
Originally posted on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7513416996949172224/
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Update history
The update history records only changes actually published, with dates.
2026-10-08: First publication of the LinkedIn original; display, classification, and consultation link set.
2026-10-08: Updated issue tags and classification.
