Indirect infringement of method invention (Article 101, paragraph (4) of the Patent Act) includes an article working the patent invention in combination with other articles. It is not necessary to possess the article actually.
Indirect infringement of method invention is established with regard to “acts of producing any product to be used exclusively for the use of the said process” etc. (Article 101, paragraph (4) of the Patent Act).
This judgement dismissed the Appellee’s (the Defendant’s) claims as follows:
“With regard to the above [i], it is understood that “a first storage medium … and a second storage medium … are prepared” means a situation where the first storage medium and the second storage medium can be provided by game software manufacturers and obtained by users and does not mean that the user actually has each of the storage media.”
“With regard to the above [ii], Invention A1 is ‘a method for operating a game system by loading a storage medium … in the game device’ (constituent feature A) and involves ‘in loading the second storage medium in the game device’ (constituent feature D) as the matter used to specify the invention. Therefore, product A-9, etc. corresponding to ‘the second storage medium’ are found to fall under ‘an article … that is used in that process.’”
” Besides, ‘an article whose only use is in that process’ in Article 101, paragraph (4) of the Patent Act is not stipulated as being restricted to be an article used exclusively for working of the patent invention and an article working the patent invention in combination with other articles is also included in the ‘article.’”
Writer: Hideki TAKAISHI
Supervising Editor: Kazuhiko YOSHIDA
Contact information for inquiries: h_takaishi@nakapat.gr.jp
Hideki TAKAISHI
Attorney at Law & Patent Attorney
Nakamura & Partners
Room No. 616, Shin-Tokyo Building,
3-3-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 100-8355, JAPAN