하코네후지야호텔(箱根富士屋ホテル) 사건

Case note on "Hakone Fujiya Hotel Story"(IP High Court of Japan, July 14, 2010 (ne) No.10017, 10023)

This is case note on "Hakone Fujiya Hotel Story", a copyright infringement case (IP High Court of Japan, July 14, 2010 (ne) No.10017, 10023). Plaintiff, a professional writer wrote a non-fiction book about historically regarded Hakone Fujiya Hotel focusing on three founders, and defendant, a prefectural governor wrote a book about the development and modernization of the Hakone area focusing on the achievements of the five people, but because of the similarity between the two books, this led the dispute to a copyright infringement lawsuit. Since two people are common in both books, 7 of the referenced books are common, and it was clear that the defendant read plaintiff's book, plaintiff argued that 15 sentences of defendant's book were infringing literally her work. Defendant denied the infringement, and therefore the case went to the court. District court of Tokyo held that the copyright infringement regarded just one sentence, but the IP High Court of Japan held that the sentence in question was a metaphorical expression, and that it was either an 'idea' or 'commonplace expression' so that this doesn't constitute copyright infringement. In this case, the court reviewed the idea-expression dichotomy and metaphorical expression, and also analyzed the distinction between 'commonplace expression' and 'creative expression', and this precedent will give significant hint to future cases.