“Patent utilization” has been a buzz word in Japanese IP industry. There seems to be an increasing number of companies thinking that they should make effective use of patents that haven’t been used by themselves; i.e. monetize such patents by selling or licensing them to others. Actually, a client of ours has asked me what salable or licensable patents are like. First of all, you may need to know when a patent transaction occurs. One is when a company has to use a patent. In other words, it is the case that the company possibly infringes someone’s patent. We may be able to call this case an assertion-based transaction, since […]

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 […]

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). 

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 […]

Faced with the problem of a declining birthrate, an aging population and a declining labor force, Japan has been expecting women’s more active participation in society. Recently, certain data suggested that women’s participation is also important for promoting innovation. On July 16 2018, it was reported that Development Bank of Japan concluded that companies’ research and development would create higher economic value patents, if it involves both male and female inventors. The economic value in this analysis is calculated based on the value of patent assets calculated from the company’s market capitalization etc. and the number of papers that cite the patent. The result of analysis reportedly shows that the […]

Japan starts to study a blockchain system for contents management. The government is aiming to support Japanese contents business (e.g. game, character) by providing a system which realizes smooth copyrights handling by using smart contract and other functions based on blockchain technology. The Japanese government is reportedly planning to proceed to the validation phase in 2019. In addition to this government project, Sony seems considering using blockchain technology for Digital Rights Management (DRM). Reportedly, Sony has filed a patent application, which was published by USPTO on April 26 2018, for using blockchain technology to manage ownership of purchased games for PlayStation 4. Blockchain technology-based IP platform is becoming hot. So […]