JAPAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Atsushi Igarashi, Yoichiro Kuriyama, Misa Takahashi and Kosuke Ojio, TMI Associates
5. Intellectual Property, Data and Data Protection 5.1 Trade Marks A trade mark right only arises after registration with the Patent Office by identifying the trade mark to be registered and filing an application with the Patent Office specifying the scope of the designated goods or services for which the trade mark is to be used. Trade marks which do not have a distinctive function, which are contrary to the public inter - est, or which are similar to another person’s trade marks, cannot be registered. Sports organisations often register trade marks in the categories of clothing (class 25), toys and sports equipment (class 28), advertising (class 35), and the organisation, arranging and con - ducting of sports competitions (class 41). The duration of a trade mark right is ten years, but because it is renewable, it can be made semi-permanent by repeating the renewal, which makes it easier to use in the sports business. For this reason, sports event organisers, such as leagues, may require their member clubs to register the trade marks for their logos and emblems. Anticipation and Abuse of Trade Mark Rights Anticipatory trade mark applications have been filed for famous names in the sports world. For example, this sort of anticipatory activity was disputed in the Juventus case. In that case, the plaintiff, who held a trade mark registration for Juventus despite being unrelated to the Juventus football club in Italy’s Serie, A, claimed infringe - ment of a trade mark right against a defendant who had been licensed by the club and used the
These subsidies are estimated to account for over 20% of the income of the national federa - tions. Subsidies may also be granted to other athletic organisations by the JSA and the JSC as sports promotion lottery subsidies. Furthermore, lottery tickets for the Tokyo 2020 Games and for the Rugby World Cup 2019 were sold and a portion of the proceeds was used to support each event respectively. 4.4 Recent Deals/Trends In Japan, the Rugby World Cup 2019 was held in 2019 and the Tokyo 2020 Games were held in 2021, with both events being extremely impor - tant to the Japanese sports industry. For the Rugby World Cup 2019, there was a total of JPY67.6 billion in revenue, including JPY38.9 billion in ticket revenue. The total revenue for the Tokyo 2020 Games was JPY640.4 billion. In sponsorship contracts for large international sporting events and other events, the sponsor is often granted exclusivity over a particular prod - uct or service category in order to increase the value of its sponsorship. However, at the Tokyo 2020 Games, with the approval of the IOC, a scheme was adopted whereby multiple compa - nies coexisted as sponsors in the same catego - ries, such as banking, aviation and newspapers, which is a new and unique form of sponsorship. As a result, domestic sponsorship revenues for the Tokyo 2020 Games reached an Olympic- record of JPY376.1billion. In Japan, major international sporting events, such as the TOKYO 2025 Deaflympics and the 20th Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026/5th Asian Para Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026 are scheduled to be held.
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