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Court Decision

Supreme Court (The Third Petty Bench), Heisei 28 (Kyo) No. 45 Google Inc. Case

On January 31, 2017, the Supreme Court of Japan issued a decision on a case filed by an individual residing in Japan against Google Inc. in the United States, demanding the deletion of links in Google's search results to webpages that refer to the individual's crime committed in 2011. The individual's demand was first examined by the Saitama District Court, which accepted the individual's claim specifically mentioning to the "right to be forgotten," and issued an order for Google Inc. to delete the links. Google Inc. appealed the case to the Tokyo High Court, which reversed the decision and dismissed the individual's claim. The individual then appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court stated in its decision that the search result is not only an automatic and mechanical listing of information that simply...
Court Decision

IP High Court Decision, Heisei 22 (Ne) No. 10076, Rakuten case

(1) In this litigation, a trademark holder brought a trademark infringement litigation against Rakuten K.K., the operator of the online shopping mall named “Rakuten Ichiba”, claiming that Rakuten's operation of the online mall constituted an infringement of the plaintiff's trademark rights. Rakuten Ichiba is an Internet shopping mall where retailers can establish virtual stores. Some of such virtual stores sold products that infringe the trademark rights of the trademark owner. (2) Rakuten argued that (i) the seller of the infringing goods was each of the retailers who established a virtual store in Rakuten Ichiba, not Rakuten, and (ii) the role of Rakuten was merely to provide retailers with opportunity to make deals with customers. In response, the trademark owner argued that, considering the involvement of Rakuten...
Court Decision

Toritsu University case

Tokyo District Court.
(1) In this case, an individual placed on a university’s website, a webpage that contained defamation of another. The plaintiff sought damages against both the one who built the webpage and the owner of the university, the City of Tokyo, the legal operator of the network that hosted the website. (2) The court found the defendant who posted the message liable, but refused to hold the City of Tokyo liable on the grounds that is was improper to impose on a party remote to the defamatory act, the duty to prevent its dissemination. The court reasoned that whether or not the network operator’s duty to prevent the occurrence of the tort arises depends on the nature of the case and should be reviewed on an individual basis. The court went on to note that even in the case where a network operator had knowledge of the fact of...
Court Decision

Animal Hospital Case

Supreme Court of Japan
Channel 2, a Japanese bulletin board, has tried to invoke the safe harbor in an online libel actions, claiming that as an operator it could not know or reasonably know that any given bulletin post was defamatory. The Supreme Court rejected these arguments and found Channel 2 liable on the rationale that, given the large amount of defamatory and “unreliable” content in threads found on its site, it was not necessary for Channel 2 to know that each thread was defamatory, but it was sufficient that Channel 2 had the knowledge that there was a risk that such transmissions/posts could be defamatory.
Court Decision

Tokio High Court, Shogakan case, reversing Tokyo District Court

(1) With respect to a copyright infringement case involving Channel 2 where a user uploaded a small part of a copyrighted work onto the bulletin board, the Tokyo District Court held that Channel 2 only had a duty to remove works suspected of copyright infringement if it transmitted the infringing content or otherwise it was “obvious” the content infringed a third party’s copyright. The Tokyo District Court stated that Channel 2 was only an intermediary for transmitting third party information and that the sender of the email that contained the copyrighted work was the party that committed the unlawful act. (2) However, the appellant court (Tokyo High Court) reversed the Tokyo District Court decision and ruled that it was obvious that the uploaded contents are simply a copy of copyrighted work, and therefore Channel 2...
Court Decision

Tokyo High Court Decision, File Rogue case, March 31, 2005, upholding Tokyo District Court

(1) With respect to a copyright infringement case involving Channel 2 where a user uploaded a small part of a copyrighted work onto the bulletin board, the Tokyo District Court held that Channel 2 only had a duty to remove works suspected of copyright infringement if it transmitted the infringing content or otherwise it was “obvious” the content infringed a third party’s copyright. The Tokyo District Court stated that Channel 2 was only an intermediary for transmitting third party information and that the sender of the email that contained the copyrighted work was the party that committed the unlawful act. (2) However, the appellant court (Tokyo High Court) reversed the Tokyo District Court decision and ruled that it was obvious that the uploaded contents are simply a copy of copyrighted work, and therefore Channel 2...