Announcement on Trial Decision Rejecting Request Regarding Tateho Patent (Maintenance of Patent)

October 30, 2018
Yasunori Kitano, Representative Director and President
Tateho Co., Ltd.

On November 29, 2017, in the litigation filed by Tateho Co., Ltd. (“Tateho”) against Kyowa Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. (“Kyowa Chemical”) for rescindment of a trial decision (a litigation for rescindment of invalidation trial decision rendered by the Japan Patent Office; the “Litigation”), the Intellectual Property High Court accepted Tateho’s claim and rendered a judgment (the judgment in favor of Tateho) to rescind the trial decision of the Japan Patent Office that invalidates Tateho’s Patent No. 3761867 (the “Tateho Patent”). While Kyowa Chemical had brought a final appeal and filed a petition for acceptance of its final appeal in the Supreme Court, on June 1, 2018, the Supreme Court made a decision to dismiss the final appeal by Kyowa Chemical and ruled that it would not accept the petition for acceptance of the final appeal.

Following this decision of the Supreme Court, the Japan Patent Office conducted an examination again regarding the validity of the Tateho Patent, acknowledged that its previous decision invalidating the patent was wrong, and, on August 30, 2018, rendered a decision that the invalidation trial requested by Kyowa Chemical would not be accepted (trial decision rejecting the request). This trial decision reflects determination that the Tateho Patent shall be maintained.

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