Hashtags are often used on social networking sites. On the Japanese flea market app “Mercari”, a person was selling his/her own products on his/her own sales site with a hashtag that uses another company’s brand name (trademark) as its keyword. The use of such a hashtag is an infringement of trademark rights, a court ruled […]

In June 2020, Kyoto University Distinguished Professor Tasuku Honjo filed a lawsuit against Ono Pharmaceutical. He demanded payment of approximately 26.2 billion yen over distributions from the Opdivo patents. After that, in September 2021, the court recommended a settlement to both sides with a proposal. Now, the parties are discussing it. For more information on […]

“Idea Capitalism” – This is the title of a book I recently read, authored by a Japanese cultural anthropologist Naoko Okawachi. The author looks back at the history of capitalism from the perspective of changing frontiers. She says, now that capitalism has eaten up most of the traditional frontiers, the new frontier is found in […]

Currently, about 690 million people, or 8.9% of the world’s population, are suffering from hunger. If this trend continues, the number of hungry people is expected to exceed 840 million by 2030. On the other hand, about 931 million tons of food were thrown away as waste in 2019, which is equivalent to 17% of […]

While the coronavirus infection is spreading again, the Tokyo Olympics are begining. For this Olympics, there has been no shortage of topics in the media, including problems and scandals related to its hosting and operation. In this Olympics, most of the competitions will be held in spectator-free venues due to concerns about the risk of […]

On May 20 2021, it was reported that FAST RETAILING CO., LTD., which operates UNIQLO, lost a patent case against an IT company Asterisk Inc. Asterisk owns a patent (JP6469758) for technology of reading data from RFID tags attached to the products, which is used in self-checkout machines. Then, they required Fast Retailing to pay license fees for […]

Are you thinking you can’t afford to hold intellectual properties (IP) because of the limited budget? I know some companies want to focus on generating revenues before acquiring IP such as patents and trademarks. However, I would like to show you some study findings here today.  Study in Europe The European Patent Office (EPO) and […]

It was reported that the Japanese government has begun to consider a system that would allow companies to pledge intangible assets such as technologies and customer base as collateral in one fell swoop. Nikkei: 中小の無形資産を一括で担保に　金融庁、融資改革で支援 In Japan, it has been pointed out that bank loans, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), focus on real estate […]

For companies that provide universal services via the Internet, responding to laws and regulations that differ from country to country may be a problem. Twitter’s headquarters may be now considering how to respond to the decision of Japan’s Supreme Court.  Previously on this blog, we reported a copyright infringement case in which the IP High […]

In the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, we have been waiting eagerly for development of therapeutic drugs and vaccines. However, some people are afraid that patents become an obstacle to development of such therapeutic methods. So, there is a movement to pledge or declare not to enforce  patents and other intellectual property rights for solutions for coronavirus; […]