Intellectual Property Information

The latest lawsuit about service invention in Japan.

On September 15, 2002, a former employee at Ajinomoto Co. filed a suit against Ajinomoto Co. over the patented production method for the artificial sweetener sold under the trade name "Pal Sweet" which is a primary article of this company.
He involved in developing the invention of this patented method.
He lodged the suit with the Tokyo District Court, claiming that "he had not received a reasonable remuneration for his contribution. He is demanding payment of 2 billion yen from Ajinomoto Co. (Nikkei Newspaper of September 15, 2002)

On September 19, 2002, the Tokyo District Court rendered an interlocutory judgment on the imputed patent right relating to the blue light emitting diode. The plaintiff demands the following as summarized below:

Demand for transfer to the plaintiff the partial patent right relating to the blue light emitting diode.
Demand for payment of reasonable remuneration to the Plaintiff if the above patent right has been transferred to the defendant as the service invention (employee invention).

In response to the plaintiff's demand, the interlocutory judgment rendered by the Tokyo District Court on that day holds that the patent right demanded at Item 1 above should be in possession of the defendant.

In both of the two cases, the user and the employee are fighting about assessment of each of the excellent inventions. Since there was no case in which such a huge remuneration in units of 100 million yen was paid for the service invention in Japan in the past, we should watch for a final decision.
In the case of the blue light emitting diode, the plaintiff, Dr. Nakamura said that "he had little knowledge of the service invention". The defendant, Nichia Corporation also seems to have had little knowledge of the service invention. This fact is so surprising to us. It is extremely important and necessary for lawyers to dispute about the service invention. Further, there is need to make many people, particularly those who are actually involved with the fields of research and development understand the Patent Law including the service invention. This should be an important way to attain the object of the Patent Law which is "to contribute to the industrial developments".