Zoom Ordered to Pay Damages for Violating Japan Firm’s Trademark

Tokyo, April 24 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo District Court on Friday ordered U.S. videoconferencing technology firm Zoom Video Communications Inc. and its sales agent in Japan to pay a total of about 182 million yen in damages for violating the trademark of Japanese electric musical devise developer Zoom Corp. In the lawsuit, the Tokyo-based company claimed that the U.S. firm’s logo had violated its trademark and demanded a total of 600 million yen in damages. The court dismissed the plaintiff’s request for an injunction against the use of the logo. According to the ruling, the Japanese company registered a logo featuring its name written horizontally in the Roman alphabet as a trademark in 2006. The U.S. firm has used a logo with the same alphabet characters for its web-conferencing service since at least 2016. Japan’s Zoom asked Zoom Video Communications to stop using the logo for the web-conferencing service in April 2020, but after the request was rejected, the Japanese firm filed a damages lawsuit in 2021. In handing down the ruling, Presiding Judge Katsumi Shibuya acknowledged that the two companies’ logos were similar in appearance and name, which could lead to misidentification or confusion. However, the judge added that this risk cannot be recognized after July 2020 because the U.S. company’s service had expanded significantly amid the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing its public recognition. The court determined that the U.S. company caused losses totaling about 166 million yen to the Japanese firm between February 2016 and June 2020, while putting losses caused by the U.S. company’s agent in Japan at 16 million yen. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]