Partial Amendment of “Guidelines for the Use of Intellectual Property under the Antimonopoly Act”

In order to clearly showthe principles about the use of intellectual property rights including patentright under the Antimonopoly Act, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (hereinafterreferred to as the "JFTC") has stipulated “Guidelines for the Use ofIntellectual Property under the Antimonopoly Act” (September 28, 2007)(hereinafter referred to as the “IP Guidelines”) and “Guidelines onStandardization and Patent Pool Arrangements” (June 29, 2005). Although the issuesrelated to the Standard Essential Patent under the Antimonopoly Act shall bebasically judged based on these guidelines, these guidelines have limiteddescriptions about the acts that seem, on its face, to be the exercises ofright, for instance, bringing an action for an injunction by the StandardEssential Patent holder. Therefore, the JFTC decided to partially amend the IPGuidelines, and made the draft public requesting public comments from variousinterested parties.

In response to therequest for comments, 54 comments were submitted. The JFTC carefully reviewedall comments and partially amended the draft and published the revised IPGuidelines (see attachment).

The JFTC will adequatelyinform enterprises and trade associations of the revised IP Guidelines, toprevent them from violating the Antimonopoly Act and help them pursue theirappropriate business activities. The JFTC will also continue to appropriatelyapply the AMA.

Attachment(PDF:263KB):http://www.jftc.go.jp/en/pressreleases/yearly-2016/January/160121.files/IPGL_Frand_attachment.pdf

*All announcements aretentative translations. Please refer to the original text written in Japanese.