In 2018 Tasuku Honjo, a professor at Kyoto Univeristy, was awarded a Nobel Prize along with other researchers for developments of cancer-fighting technologies. The protein Honjo found in immune cells, programmed death receptor 1 (PD-1), was found to be a…
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As mentioned in an earlier article, the imperial period name may not be trademarked on its own but may only be registered in a trademark when combined with other elements in a way that can be distinctive. The new imperial…
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A recent addition to the drink offerings in Japanese shops and vending machines has been “Wonda TEA COFFEE,” produced and of course trademarked by major drink company Asahi Soft Drinks Co., Ltd (Tokyo). Drinks in this line combine cafe latte…
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Japan, seeking to keep with the challenges that digital reproduction makes for copyright infringement prevention, has been aiming to bring the law more to bear on downloaders of pirated materials online. This comes in the wake of the Mangamura manga…
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Saitama Prefecture is humanly and materially blessed. Just north of Tokyo Prefecture, it is home to over 7 million and close to 2,000 people per square kilometer (5,000/sq. mile), and many businesses. [3] Yet its smaller companies, like those in…
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On January 17, 2019, the Japanese Patent Attorney’s Association held a press conference in which presenter Seiji Matsuda pointed out the impact of the now-effective modified Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement (often called TPP-11) on intellectual property. The major changes…
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Japanese chemical giant Toray announced on December 19, 2018 that it is striking out at two competitors that it claims are violating its extended medical use patent for an anti-itch product, Remitch®. The Japanese business paper Nikkei Shimbun took up…
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Plant variety registration laws do not feature frequently in intellectual property news feeds, but a recent conflict has arisen in Korean Jeju Island where farmers acquired new varieties of Japanese mikan tangerines without formal licenses. Now that the varieties have…
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Amid all the intrigue about the trade war between China (PRC) and the United States, this time not Huawei in the West but Apple in China has been dealt a blow. However the setback (if it proves to be that)…
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In spring 2018, Japan implemented a Revision to Unfair Competition Prevention Act that includes a change to the disclosure grace period (exception to lack of novelty of invention period) for filers of Japanese patent, utility model, or industrial design applications….
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