今や私たちの生活のいたるところでアルゴリズムが動いています。Amazonで私の商品購入履歴に基づいた商品を推薦してくるくらいなら大した問題はありませんが、個人の信用力や店の評価などについては、そのスコアによっては深刻な影響を与える場合もあります。昨年の5月、韓国料理店チェーンが、飲食店情報サイの運営会社を東京地裁に訴えました。サイト運営会社が飲食店評価のアルゴリズムを変更したことで、同チェーン店の評価が下がり、売上高も急減したからです。チェーン店側は、これはチェーン店を不当に差別する独占禁止法に違反する行為だと主張しました。[…]

新型コロナウイルス（COVID-19）のパンデミックの状況において、治療薬やワクチンの開発が切望されています。しかし、このような治療法の開発には、特許が障害になるのではないかと危惧する声もあります。 そのため、コロナウイルス対策のための特許などの知的財産権を行使しないことを誓約あるいは宣言する動きがあります。例えば、米国のOpen COVID Pledge や日本のCOVID対策支援宣言 です。

楽天は、2019年夏、3,980円以上購入した場合には送料を無料にすると発表しました。その送料は、出店者に負担させようとしているようです。 楽天側は、アマゾンなどとの競争が激しいことを理由に、出店者側に協力を求めています。しかし、出店者側はこれに強く反発しています。 報道によれば、楽天市場からの撤退を決めた企業もあるようです。 その後、公正取引委員会がこの件の調査を開始し、2020年2月10日に独占禁止法違反の疑いで楽天の提携先に立ち入り検査を行いました。楽天はこの件ついて プレスリリース を発表しています。

Japanese large companies have been stealing SMEs’ intellectual property. This issue was brought up in a working group discussing the improvement of business conditions for SMEs or subcontracting companies, as reported in our previous article. Then, Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) conducted surveys on the handling intellectual property in the transactions in manufacturing industry, and published the report on June 14 2019. JFTC had responses from 15,875 manufacturers, and received reports of 726 incidents. The reported incidents include: Forcing the disclosure of know-how, to manufacture in-house or make other cheaper companies manufacture the product using such know-how. Doing joint research only by name, in which only a subcontracting company works […]

On March 13 2019, Japan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) made a decision to cancel the exclusion order against Qualcomm which had been issued on September 28 2009 and appealed by Qualcomm on November 24 of that year. It took almost a decade! It’s too long, but Qualcomm has finally got an expected result.    The main issue was whether or not the Qualcomm’s license agreement on intellectual properties for CDMA mobile wireless communication, which includes the following provisions, possibly restrains the business activities of Japanese mobile device manufacturers and disrupts fair competition. Royalty free license of IP of the Japanese manufacturers to Qualcomm The manufacturers’ Non-assertion obligation against Qualcomm The manufacturers’ Non-assertion […]

The previous article on possible revision of IP litigation system covered different positions taken by large companies and SMEs; – i.e SMEs asking for improvement of the status of patent holders and large companies wanting the maintenance of  the status quo. Now another confrontation between them has been obtaining attention. According to the document distributed in a government-appointed working group discussing the improvement of business conditions for SMEs or subcontracting companies, some experts in the field of antitrust and subcontracting law have brought up the issue of intellectual property rights and know-how having been siphoned from subcontracting companies into large companies in dominant bargaining position. In response to this suggestion, […]

In Japan, a platform business has been considered just a vehicle for service providers and users, and assumed no responsibility. However, in response to recent trends in regulations on platform businesses (e.g. against Google) in Europe, Japan has commenced studies toward tightening of regulations since July 2018, and published the draft interim report on November 5 2018 to invite public opinion until December 4 and commence to discuss detailed regulations after the turn of the year. Here are several issues addressed in the report which will be discussed next year. Market manipulability based on algorithmic profiling and opaqueness of the technologies. The necessity of disclosure of code or algorithm will […]