Overview
- The Supreme Court's Second Petty Bench, which ruled Friday, dismissed Stokke's appeal and said the Trip Trap chair is not a copyrighted work.
- The bench led by Justice Okamura Kazumi held that designs for mass-produced, useful goods fall under design rights that require registration and last 25 years.
- The court cautioned that layering copyright on industrial products would tangle permissions and could block routine use in the market.
- Judges outlined a narrow exception only when a product has a shape that can be enjoyed apart from utility or when it was made mainly for aesthetic viewing, and the chair met neither test.
- The case began when Norwegian maker Stokke sued Hyogo-based Noz over a similar chair and sought an injunction and damages, and lower courts in 2023 and 2024 had already ruled against Stokke.