Novelty (related to Prior designs)
(Conclusion) Novelty should NOT be found. (Design right owner lost.)
The court affirmed that the Handouts fell under the category of “publications distributed”.
When the resistered design and the prior design are observed as a whole, the difference is a partial and weak difference that is limited to “a difference to the extent that it can be seen by looking at this point only,” and does not give the obsever a different aesthetic impression as a whole.
<Writer: Hideki Takaishi (Attorney-at-law licensed in Japan and California)>
https://www.ip.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_en/314/000314.pdf