Under Article 50 of the Japanese Trademark Act, where a request for
cancellation of trademark registration based on non-use is filed by a third
party, the registration of such trademark may be cancelled for the reason of
non-use unless the holder of the trademark right proves the following: (i)
Within three years prior to the registration of the request for cancellation,
(ii) in Japan, (iii) any of the holder of a trademark right, exclusive licensee
or non-exclusive licensee, (iv) in connection with any of the designated
goods pertaining to the request, (v) has used the registered trademark.
Under the consciousness for the regulations as described above, it is
intended in this article to find the direction we should move toward by
comparing and analyzing the circumstances regarding issues(for example,
formal use, requirements for request, a person requesting a trial, the
effectiveness of a final trial decision, etc.) on a system for cancellation
based on non-use in the Japanese Trademark Act and its characteristics,
and further studying Japanese legislation purposes for seeking for
standardization of the criteria about applying regulations of cancellation
based on non-use of registered trademark simultaneously.