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。

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 […]

Ultraman, it’s one of Japan’s superheros like America’s Superman. A copyright holder of Ultraman, Tsuburaya Productions has been in dispute with Chinese production companies which produced and released a film featuring Ultraman in 2017. These Chinese companies now released another film featuring Ultraman. In response to this, Tsuburaya Productions made a statement on January 17 2019 that “we will take all necessary legal steps to protect our legal rights.” (The featured photo is a scene in the film trailer). This case is actually not so simple like typical Chinese copycat cases. The disputes began with a Thai businessman (Chaiyo Productions), who had friendship with a former president of Tsuburaya Productions, claiming […]