Intellectual Property High Court rules in favor of Nintendo in the Nintendo/MariCAR legal battle

Nintendo has been battling MARI Mobility Development Co., formerly known as MariCAR, about their use of Mario characters and costumes to promote their go-kart business. The Intellectual Property High Court has now given an interim judgement in the legal dispute, ruling in favor of Nintendo. You can see the full press release below.

Regarding the appeal trial (Heisei 30 (Ne) #10081) for the lawsuit (Heisei 29 (Wa) #6293) filed on 24 February 2017 by Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Head office: Minami-ku, Kyoto; Representative director & president: Shuntaro Furukawa; hereafter “this company”) against Maricar Co., Ltd. (Current firm name: MARI Mobility Development Co., Ltd.; Head office: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; hereafter “the defendant company”) and its representative director, we hereby inform that the Intellectual Property High Court has today handed down an interim judgement.

In this interim judgement, the defendant company’s act of using displays such as “Maricar (in katakana)” and “maricar” for business (including usages on websites that are only written in foreign languages and more), while acknowledging that the mark “Mario Kart (in katakana)” inside Japan and the mark “MARIO KART” both inside and outside Japan are well-known among customers of the defendant company (hereafter “customers”) as displays for this company’s products, has been acknowledged as being applicable to an unfair competition act. And the defendant company’s act of lending costumes of Mario and other characters among others, while also acknowledging that presentations of Mario and more of this company’s characters are well-known among customers from both inside and outside Japan as displays for this company’s products, have also been acknowledged as being applicable to unfair competition acts.

From hereafter, the trial in the Intellectual Property High Court is planned to continue with determining the amount of money caused by damages produced from these infringement acts, based on this interim judgement as a premise.

This company intends to continue taking necessary steps against infringement acts on intellectual properties including this company’s brands from hereafter, in order to protect this company’s precious intellectual properties which have been established with great effort for many years.