Japan’s famous monster “Godzilla,” that is, its trademark, rampages again. On July 19, 2023, Japan’s IP High Court judged in favor of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) Invalidation of Registration for another trademark, “GUZZILLA.” What’s GUZZILLA? GUZZILLA is the name…
Read more
Japan plans to open a synergistic court this October—the Business Court. The new Business Court, a little further away from Tokyo Station (Nakameguro), is to house the IP High Court and intellectual property matters with other business-related legal courts together…
Read more
Do you remember the Yahoo! portal? It was cool before Google disrupted the Internet industry . . . Actually, Yahoo! is alive and well in Japan. It has adapted to remain competitive, and now the Japanese parent organization Z Holdings…
Read more
Old shopping checkouts are vanishing in UNIQLO, which is famous in Japan and now outside of it for its casual apparel retailing. In recent years it gained attention for its automated checkout scanning systems, where the customer can place the…
Read more
The Japan Patent Office published its annual Status Report in March. (You can see our review of previous reports for 2017, 2018, and 2020.) Here are a few of the things we noted. Patent Prosecution in Japan -Steady decline in…
Read more
In spite of novel coronavirus difficulties, we have moved our Tokyo office! As of February 8, 2021, we are now in Koji-maji (Nibancho), Chiyoda Ward, in the heart of Tokyo, in an ideal location to reach the Japan Patent Office…
Read more
The Prime Minister’s Office issued an Plan for Promoting Intellectual Property 2019 in June 2019. This Plan lays out various principles around which the government apparently hopes to rally businesses in a new direction, away from strict guarding of IP…
Read more
Japan’s Customs enforcement caught and prohibited entry of attempted imports of infringing items in about 30,600 cases, up from about 26,000 in 2016, according to the Ministry of Finance. 92.5% of the cases were caught going through the Postal Services…
Read more
Asia, Japan, News, Trademarks
Japan is known for not only technological prowess but also aging and declining populations, and concerns for its economic future as China, South Korea, and other Asian states grow economically. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has…
Read more
The Beijing Municipal Administration of Industry and Commerce recently performed a product-focused crackdown on pirated sneakers of ASICS (Kobe, Japan) in the city and online. The haul of suspected pirated goods (over 31,000) was estimated to have a market value…
Read more