Japan Top Court Finds Dwango Patent Infringed by FC2

   Tokyo, March 3 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Supreme Court upheld Monday lower court rulings against FC2 Inc., finding the U.S. video-sharing platform operator infringed a patent held by Japanese peer Dwango Co., which operates the Niconico platform.
   The top court's Second Petty Bench, presided by Justice Koichi Kusano, rejected FC2's appeals against the Intellectual Property High Court's two separate rulings in July 2022 and May 2023, both of which ordered the Las Vegas-based firm to stop violating Dwango's patent on a video comment-posting system and pay damages of 100 million yen and 11 million yen, respectively, to the Kadokawa Corp. unit.
   FC2, which distributes videos with a similar comment-posting function in Japan via servers abroad, demanded that the rulings be overturned on the grounds that a patent is protected only in a country where it was granted.
   The chief justice, however, flexibly interpreted the "territoriality doctrine," saying, "If the patent has to lose its effectiveness only because the videos are distributed from abroad, the patent law cannot serve its purpose of contributing to the development of industry through the protection and promotion of inventions."
   Now that the internet has made cross-border distribution of information easier than ever, there is "no special meaning" for the Supreme Court to take into account the FC2 server location, Kusano noted.

(2025/03/03-19:57)

To read a full story, please click here to find out how to subscribe.