U.F.O. and UFO

  • August 11, 2020

#patent #trademark

[U.F.O.=Product name of Nisshin Yakisoba]
“U.F.O.” is the brand name for cup fried noodles, which has been a huge hit since its release in Japan in 1976. U is for “umai” which means delicious, F is for “futoi(thick) noodles”, and O is for “ookii(big) container”. The logo on the container is registered under Japanese Trademark Registration No. 5971287 (designated product: printed matter, calendar).

[UFO=unidentified flying object]
 Let’s change the story and introduce a case of the Intellectual Property High Court concerning “UFO”.
The “detailed description of the invention” in the patent specification must be clearly and sufficiently described so that a person skilled in the art can carry out the invention. This is called “enablement requirement”. A patent application (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2015-145675) having “UFO flight device based on UFO flight principle” as the title of the invention describes in detail description of the invention by those skilled in the art to produce “UFO flight device”. In addition, it received a decision of refusal in the examination as it was not clearly and sufficiently described so that it could be used. On the other hand, the applicant has filed a lawsuit for canceling the trial decision (case number of filing of action JP2019-10122), but the Intellectual Property High Court rejected the request based on the following judgment (decision made on February 4, 2020 ). “… The “UFO flight device” of the present invention can change its speed without receiving any external force or changing its mass… Momentum… It violates the law of conservation, and also violates the law of action-reaction. “

In modern science and technology, it can be said that it is impossible to produce and use a “UFO flight device”. (Conan)

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