On September 6 2018, Tokyo District Court dismissed the GREE’s claim against Supercell in a patent infringement case, which was previously reported here. GREE demanded JPY 100 million (approx. USD 909,000) in damages from Supercell for the patent infringement by the layout editor of  “Clash of Clans”. In this case, the interpretation of “the whole game space … chosen by player” in Claim 6 and 8 of the subject patent (JP 5952947) became an issue, especially from the viewpoint of how a player chooses the whole game space. The judge examined the description of the specification and the response to an office action, and concluded that the player chooses a certain […]

We are delighted to announce our new partnership with BijuSoft to start technology service “On-Demand AI Team”.  BijuSoft has top experts in various field of artificial intelligence (AI), – e.g. Machine Learning, Natural Language Understanding, Computer Vision, Internet of Things (IoT) and Mobile Computing, and Data Analytics.  Now we can assist our customers to integrate the most advanced AI technology in their products. We can also help the customers improve their business by solving their hardest data analytics, IoT, and mobile computing problems to harness the treasure trove of information hidden in their business data.  Please check here for more information. For Japanese, please see here.

Japanese largest musical copyright administration society JASRAC reached an agreement with a movie theater group on September 6 2018 that, for foreign films which will be released from November 2018 to March 2021, JASRAC will collect 6-level of music royalty of JPY 150,000 (approx. USD 1,350) to JPY 300,000 (approx. USD 2,700) in accordance with the number of screens. Currently, JASRAC is collecting JPY 180,000 (approx. USD 1,600) per film work. Reportedly, JASRAC is calculating on increased revenue by 15% to 20% by this agreement. For Japanese films, JASRAC is collecting the royalty for each of the musics in accordance with the number of screens, which is different from the […]

IPBC Japan 2018 began with a keynote speech by Naoko Munakata, commissioner of the Japan Patent Office (JPO), in Tokyo on September 13. Munakata introduced the recent measures taken by the JPO, such as; SEP licensing negotiation guide Startup support system (Fast track examination, Dispatch of experts for IP advice, financing, and business) Collection of patent examination cases in the field of  artificial intelligence (AI) In addition, Munakata said that the JPO is considering measures to improve attractiveness of intellectual property litigation system, especially from the following two aspects; Improvement of evidence collection procedures for IP right holders to collect all the necessary information to prove infringement and calculate damages […]

It is great pleasure to announce that Satoshi Watanabe, as Adviser to Shobayashi International, got interviewed by a global intellectual property magazine IPPro for Japan Country Profile, and its article “The evolving landscape of the Japanese IP system” written by Rebecca Delaney was published on September 6. You can read it here (See page 20). 

How much would you sell your personal data? Japan has been considering building a data market to assist companies create new services, as previously reported. The first application in such a data market would be the personal data exchange. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (MUTB), the second largest in trust business in Japan, announced that it starts a demonstration experiment for a new data management service from this August. Reportedly, it will launch this new service in 2019. The feature of this service is that individuals will be able to specify the personal data to be provided and a company which is permitted to use the data, while participant companies […]