Re: (Ichi)Taro in Trouble

[Taro Toporific]

Matsushita patents the question mark?????
.

Obviously the judges in that Tokyo court need to pound their crack into finer power before making software rulings.

[Socratesabroad]

The English is a tad off but understandable and offers a different view of the Ichitaro case:

In this trial, it has been said that Matsushita's subject to sue that company is mysterious, because, today, there are no Matsushita products which implements this patent, since they had given up of the business of producing and selling Japanese wordprocessing equipment long ago. According to the article in CNET Japan, Matsushita spokesperson explained about that as, "Matsushita must re-build the company on its intellectual property and technology. For that purpose, we must keep our black-boxes as many as we could. This trial is the expression of our intention, so it does not matter even if we don't have any economical merit of sueing in this case."

[snip]
When those big companies like Matsushita got into the race of sueing others around with such minor software patents, sometimes things could get disasterous, I strongly suppose.
http://jroller.com/page/hatano/20050203

And a detailed explanation of how Apple already included a similar feature before Matsushita supposedly patented it is here (there is an Excite Engrish trans. via a link on the miuras site).
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/shiomaneki/20050203/p1

Heck, there's even an anti-Matsushita protest site:
http://miuras.net/en/matsushita.html

[Taro Toporific]

As our FG legal eagles could better explain, Japanese patent law does NOT require "novelty" to patent an invention --- patenting the obscenely obvious and previously used is legal. I'd say 80% of the patents I review for "Maybe-the-Largest-in-Japan Inc., could not pass the "novelty" test in the Real World.

Japanese view patent filing as a game of GO where you make a zillion little moves to block your opponent until you win because your opponent cannot move.
For example, the useless IP-fax machine project I worked on five years ago had 120 patents on the paper feed path. If another company was stupid enough to want to make a similar IP-fax machine, the paper would have to feed through the machine in double corkscrew pattern like a Mobius strip as not to violate our patents.

[den4]

seems like it will launch after all....
http://www.itworld.com/Man/2687/050208japanoffice/

Japanese software maker Justsystem Corp. has cleared the way for the launch of its Ichitaro word processing software this week by appealing a court ruling that had blocked the sale of its product on patent infringement grounds.

although I wonder how long this will go on....

[Socratesabroad]

Cheers, TT. I had forgotten all about the lack of 'novelty' required for a patent.

If Ichitaro does launch, I'll be happy. Not that I give a fig about Ichitaro itself, but I am thoroughly in love with the ATOK IME that JustSystem puts out. It definitely puts MS to shame, and especially with more technical Japanese. I'd hate to see the firm go under since most of their sales are based on Ichitaro.

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Injunction on Ichitaro sales overruled/High court finds Matsushita's patent lacked innovation.
The Intellectual Property High Court on Friday overturned an earlier Tokyo District Court order to Justsystem Corp. to stop manufacturing and selling its Ichitaro word-processor and Hanako graphics software. The district court in February this year found that Justsystem infringed on a Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. patent involving a function called "help mode button" in a case filed by Matsushita against the Tokushima-based software company. Matsushita maintained that the Justsystem software indirectly infringed on Matsushita's patent. Justsystem appealed the February district court ruling. The Grand Panel of the Intellectual Property High Court (IPHC), comprising five judges with expert knowledge of intellectual property issues and dealing in cases with social implications, ruled that Matsushita's patent lacks new and inventive elements and should be invalidated. It was the first decision handed down by the Grand Panel...more...

[Socratesabroad]

The Grand Panel of the Intellectual Property High Court (IPHC), comprising five judges with expert knowledge of intellectual property issues and dealing in cases with social implications, ruled that Matsushita's patent lacks new and inventive elements and should be invalidated. It was the first decision handed down by the Grand Panel

A voice of reason at last. Hopefully the first of many such wise decisions...

[kurohinge1]

[SIZE="5"]Ichitaro backdoor penetration now preventable with patch.[/SIZE]




Get your anti-penetration patch here (in Japanese):

[Greji]

[quote="kurohinge1"]]

I told mom not to get that Tattoo! Now everybody can ID her when she posts!