１．Background

Company X is the owner of patent right to civil engineering and construction material, and demanded from Company Y an injunction of the manufacture and sale of a product and the payment of compensation for damages. Company Y said that they have not infringed on Company X's patent rights but would cease the manufacture and sale of the product in the future, and argued that the amount of damages demanded by Company X was too large. The parties negotiated but were unable to reach any agreement on both of the fact of infringement and an estimate of the damages. Thus, Company X applied for mediation.

２．Purposes of the application

Company X, the applicant, sought to demand an injunction of the manufacture and sale of the product in question and payment of compensation for past damages.

３．Arguments of the respondent

Company Y, the respondent, claimed that the product they manufactured and sold is not "an object used only for working of the patented invention in question", and thus Company Y has not infringed on Company X's patent to begin with. Even if the product is used only for working of the patented invention in question", almost all of products do not correspond to "an object used only for working of the patented invention", and therefore, the amount of damage to Company X is small.

４．Point in dispute

The points in dispute were
1) whether the infringement was a direct infringement or an indirect infringement (claim interpretation);
2) in the case of the indirect infringement, what the range of the object is;
3) how to estimate the quantity of the product manufactured and sold, and the amount of damages.

５．Conclusion

Indirect infringement was accepted for part of the product. The mediators ruled that the dispute would be resolved by Company Y paying a lump sum of money (millions of yen) to Company X as a settlement for past and future damages.

６．Characteristics of this case

The mediators received accounting records from Company Y (the respondent) and checked the overall quantity of the product manufactured and sold. The parties had discussions in advance and asked for the mediators' opinion based on those discussions. Three hearings for mediation were held in two months after the date of the application, and the dispute was settled amicably.