In Japan, there have not been many copyright infringement cases on choreography, though Japanese copyright law exemplifies “dance works” as an example of copyrighted works. On September 20 2018, Osaka District Court issued an injunction against the use of the plaintiff’s choreographies for the following five songs and awarded approx. JPY 430,000 (approx. USD 3,900) in damages, in a copyright  (right of performance) infringement case brought by a master teacher in the art of Hula (Kumu Hula) residing in Hawaii, Kapu Alquiza, against Kyushu Hawaiian Association. (You can read the decision in Japanese.) E Pili Mai Lei Ho’ohen Ua Lanipili I Ka Nani O Papakōlea Blossom Nani Ho’i e Mauna […]

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 […]

Recently, alternative lending has been attracting attention in Japan. Alternative lending is a business loan option that falls outside of a traditional bank loan. For example, a Japanese electronic commerce and Internet company Rakuten gives a loan to its online shopping site owners using daily accounting data, and an accounting software company Yayoi also provides a loan to the users based on accounting data stored in the cloud. The banks seem to be losing opportunities to make a loan. Considering such situation, some banks reportedly have started collaboration with IT companies to develop similar services. There have been move to use intellectual property information for examination of new loans. Japan […]

As previously reported, the progress of open innovation is slow in Japan. However, the government has been actively developing measures to promote open innovation. For example, it prepared “University Factbook” which provides contact information of business-academia collaboration office, performance of joint / contract research, performance of patent filing and utilization, and technology field of patent applications and other information of each university, and also announced the scheme of “Innovation Management Hub” which sets up a proven TLO to assist technology transfer for local universities. A recent noteworthy measure is the development of “IP asset platform” to match domestic and international needs with Japanese IP assets such as technology seeds, which […]

Open innovation is essential for companies. It has been said for quite some time now. However, many of Japanese companies seem to be not yet able to make good use of open innovation, comparing to European and American companies. The Japanese government released the White Paper on Open Innovation (the second edition) on June 27 2018. It shows the current status of open innovation and some successful cases in Japan. The findings are that: Collaborative or contracted research between private companies and universities or public institutions has been increasing both in the number of cases and in terms of expense. However, both the proportion of research expense to universities in the […]