Japan’s IP High Court (IPHC) is setting a trend to deny patented programs even if sent from servers outside of Japan, with its May 26, 2023 case DWANGO v. FC2. The IPHC rejects immunity to FC2 simply on grounds that…
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Do you want more IP seeds to meet your needs? Panasonic Holdings, a premier electronics company based in Osaka and with over 100,000 live registered intellectual properties worldwide, has clearly shifted its policies for IP from closed to open strategy….
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Sushi is big business in Japan, of course, and two major rivals on the conveyor belt sushi market are the Kappa Sushi and Hama Zushi (Sushi) chains. Recently, these two restaurants came into the news as a former executive from…
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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…
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The Japan Patent Office Annual Report (特許行政年次報告書) of 2022 (JPOAR 2022), issued late last month, sums up trends through 2021 in particular with a variety of data (including comparisons with other patent offices). The JPOAR 2022 is quite detailed, so…
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This time, we take a look more at Building Designs so that you can file to protect your images, and be aware of possible infringement risks, in Japan. It seems that countries’ approaches to protecting intellectual property for an architectural…
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Unless a patent was filed in Japan a while ago (before April 1, 2004), the Japan Patent Office (JPO) will be charging more for many of the Japanese patent (including for PCT filings) and trademark fees, effective April 1, 2022….
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In the USA, a Design must be “any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture” (35 U.S. Code § 171[a], emphasis added), but icons and other images may be registered if treated as part of a manufactured…
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We published an article in August 2021 and a followup newsflash in December regarding the Japanese government’s move toward a legal framework for a new secret patent system. The task force considering aspects of economic security for Japan presented their…
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Late last year, news came out that Nippon Steel, one of Japan’s great steel manufacturers, was suing Toyota and Toyota’s new supplier of non-oriented magnetic steel sheets, Baosteel, for patent infringement. Later, Nippon Steel even set its sights on longstanding…
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