JAPAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Miki Goto, Ryo Murakami and Akihito Ishii, Anderson Mori & Tomotsune
However, the UCPA provides that rights under the UCPA to seek an injunction of continuous misappropriation extinguish: • if the right is not exercised within three years after the claimant becomes aware of the damage and the tortfeasor; or • upon passing of 20 years from the time of commencement of the tortious act. 5.3 Initiating a Lawsuit To initiate a trade secret lawsuit, the owner should file a complaint to the court having juris - diction, as explained in 5.4 Jurisdiction of the Courts . 5.4 Jurisdiction of the Courts The Code of Civil Procedure does not provide any exclusive jurisdiction of specialised courts for trade secret claims. Therefore, within the ter - ritory of Japan, a plaintiff can file a lawsuit in a court that has jurisdiction over the litigation in general (eg, a court that has jurisdiction over the place of domicile of the defendant, the place of the act of misappropriation or the place of reali - sation of loss or damage to the plaintiff). It should be noted that a plaintiff is entitled to bring a trade secret claim based on the UCPA to the Tokyo District Court or the Osaka District Court as an alternative to any court in eastern Japan and western Japan respectively, in its discretion, even if these courts otherwise had no basis of jurisdiction over the case in its dis - cretion. This is to ensure the opportunity of the plaintiff to utilise the special divisions in these two courts that exclusively handle intellectual property-related cases. 5.5 Initial Pleading Standards Trade secret claims are subject to ordinary standards in relation to the initial pleading. In
general, the plaintiffs are expected to establish a prima facie case with their initial pleading. For - mally, the plaintiff is also required to assert the amount of damages incurred by the misappro - priation. However, in practice, hard evidence for damage amounts is not required by the court upon the filing of the complaint. 5.6 Seizure Mechanisms Seizure of evidence may be done through the means explained in 5.7 Obtaining Information and Evidence . Further, although this does not seize the items for the owner, Article 3.2 of the UCPA provides that the owner of a trade secret may obtain an order obligating the defendant to take measures necessary for the cessation and the prevention of the infringement, including disposal of items constituting the infringing act (including those produced by the infringing act) and the removal of a facility used for the infringing act if its busi - ness interest has been, or is threatened to be, infringed by the misappropriation of its trade secret by such party. 5.7 Obtaining Information and Evidence General discovery of relevant evidence is not available under the Japanese procedure. The UCPA provides the following means for the par - ties to gather information and evidence. • A party may move for a court order obliging the other party to produce documents held by the other party that are necessary for proving misappropriation or calculating the amount of damages. • The owner of the document may provide justifiable reasons and be exempt from such obligation. • A failure to comply with the order does not lead to any sanctions, but may cause the
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