FC2 infringed on Dwango's patent, Japan's top court rules
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld lower court rulings against FC2, finding that the U.S. video-sharing platform operator infringed on a patent held by Japanese peer Dwango, which operates the Niconico platform.
The top court's Second Petty Bench, presided by Justice Koichi Kusano, rejected FC2's appeals against two separate rulings by the Intellectual Property High Court 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 ($671,200) and ¥11 million, respectively, to the Kadokawa 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 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.
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