Episode 13

There is a debate about whether or not applied art should be subject to overlapping application of design rights and copyright.
The conventional view was that for applied art to be protected as a work of authorship, it was not enough for the expression to be recognized as creative, but that it also needed to have a level of artistic appreciation that could be considered equivalent to pure art.
However, in the Intellectual Property High Court ruling of 2014 (Ne) No. 10063 on April 14, 2015, the court ruled that "applied art, like other works of expression, may be recognized as creative and copyrightable if the expression shows some individuality of the creator, but it is difficult to imagine that this would lead to restrictions on its use and distribution in the general public that would prevent the realization of practical or industrial purposes." and thus granted protection to applied art as a work of authorship.
The court also acknowledged the overlapping application of the Copyright Act and the Design Act, stating that "Copyright Act and Design Act have different aims and purposes (Copyright Act, Article 1; Design Act, Article 1), and there is no explicit relationship in which one of them applies exclusively or preferentially, and the application of the other is impossible or subordinate, and it is difficult to find any rational basis for such an interpretation."
This Intellectual Property High Court ruling is a precedent. A "precedent" is a ruling that contains a legal opinion that should be applied to other cases, and merely stating the reason for the sentence in the case in question is not a precedent (Supreme Court, Case No. 3474 of 1951 (A), Decision of the First Petty Bench of February 12, 1953, Criminal Collection, Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 211). This is a Supreme Court precedent in a criminal case, but in a civil case, merely stating the reason for the amount of compensation is not a precedent.
Regarding the interpretation of Article 102, paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Patent Act (presumption of the amount of damages, etc.), there is the judgment of the Grand Council case of the Intellectual Property High Court, Case of 2018 (Ne) No. 10063 on June 7, 2019. In this judgment, the amount of profit received by the infringer is the amount of marginal profit obtained by deducting additional expenses required from the sales amount of the infringing product. Furthermore, the rate to be received for the implementation in this case was determined taking into consideration the statistical average royalty rates in recent years in the technical field of each patent in question. In other words, this judgment is a court case that merely indicates the reason for the amount of compensation, and is not a precedent. Nevertheless, it is abnormal that it is a Grand Council case. One year and four months after this Grand Bench judgment, the presiding judge (the Chief Justice of the Intellectual Property High Court) was promoted to the President of the Takamatsu High Court.