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INTEREST: Company Charged For Selling Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Lookalike Products




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Kurohei



Joined: 13 Dec 2010
Posts: 597
PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 3:20 pm Reply with quote
Can someone even claim copy right on green and black checkered board pattern? It obviously resembles demon slayer but I think it's kinda stretching it. Disney owns Mickey Mouse, but they don't own bipedal talking rodents.
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Ak Animax



Joined: 28 Sep 2020
Posts: 81
PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 3:34 pm Reply with quote
Some Mainland Copy cat Chinese companies ( like Alibaba) are already selling anime related merchandise, anime lamps and products in southeast Asian countries without
Prior permission of the Owner and licence holder!!
China is also involved which not surprising
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mewpudding101
Industry Insider


Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Posts: 2209
Location: Tokyo, Japan
PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 3:50 pm Reply with quote
Things with this pattern are EVERYWHERE right now in Japan.
It does raise the question... Is it really OK to make using a checkered pattern an offense?
I could understand if it were a logo or symbol, but it’s such a simple pattern...
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WANNFH



Joined: 13 Mar 2011
Posts: 1801
PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 4:50 pm Reply with quote
mewpudding101 wrote:
Things with this pattern are EVERYWHERE right now in Japan.
It does raise the question... Is it really OK to make using a checkered pattern an offense?
I could understand if it were a logo or symbol, but it’s such a simple pattern...
Well, like it said in the news, Shueisha actually tried to patent the whole patterns of Kimetsu, including the Tanjiro haori pattern - and it actually failed because of it's simplicity.
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yurihellsing





PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:28 pm Reply with quote
Ak Animax wrote:
Some Mainland Copy cat Chinese companies ( like Alibaba) are already selling anime related merchandise, anime lamps and products in southeast Asian countries without
Prior permission of the Owner and licence holder!!
China is also involved which not surprising


Alibaba is a market place not a manufacturer as the same sellers now seem to be operating on Amazon's market place too as well as ebay.
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Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1222
PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:54 pm Reply with quote
I can't believe they trademarked clothing patterns, specially one as simple as Tanjiro's checkered robe. Still, I have to admit that all that confiscated merch looked kinda cool, here in South America Demon Slayer bootleg merchandise and apparel began to increase after the show got more exposure when it got released on Netflix, there's a shop near me which sells t-shirts, plushies, keychains, some knock-off figures and even some replicas of Tanjiro's earrings, all of the unnofficial. At least the official manga sold well here.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:10 pm Reply with quote
Silver Kirin wrote:
I can't believe they trademarked clothing patterns, specially one as simple as Tanjiro's checkered robe.


They didn't. They attempted to trademark it but the court declined.

Quote:
In June, Shueisha trademarked the clothing patterns for the following Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba characters: Giyū Tomioka, Shinobu Kocho, and Kyōjurō Rengoku. The trademark was denied for the clothing patterns of Tanjirō Kamado, Nezuko Kamado, and Zenitsu Agatsuma.


My thought is that the Tanjiro sweatshirt was marketed/labeled as official Demon Slayer merchandise when it isn't. Basically, you can take the same checker pattern as Tanjiro's robe and put it on your own merchandise, but you can't call it Demon Slayer merchandise. Think of those knock-off Halloween costumes where you know what it is, but in this case it'd be called "Historical Vampire Hunter" or something instead.
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ranran-001



Joined: 25 Oct 2018
Posts: 543
PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:26 pm Reply with quote
As far as has been reported, Tanjiro's and Zenitsu's kimono patterns could not be trademarked. That said, if the sellers were explicitly linking the clothing to Demon Slayer, then they are violating other trademarks belonging to Demon Slayer.
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mewpudding101
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Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Posts: 2209
Location: Tokyo, Japan
PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:47 pm Reply with quote
WANNFH wrote:
Well, like it said in the news, Shueisha actually tried to patent the whole patterns of Kimetsu, including the Tanjiro haori pattern - and it actually failed because of it's simplicity.


I know they tried, but failed.
Despite that, they’re going after sellers with this pattern.
Unless they specifically advertised it as Demon Slayer stuff, it seems odd.
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ranran-001



Joined: 25 Oct 2018
Posts: 543
PostPosted: Fri Sep 10, 2021 4:59 pm Reply with quote
ANN_Lynzee wrote:
Silver Kirin wrote:
I can't believe they trademarked clothing patterns, specially one as simple as Tanjiro's checkered robe.


They didn't. They attempted to trademark it but the court declined.

Quote:
In June, Shueisha trademarked the clothing patterns for the following Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba characters: Giyū Tomioka, Shinobu Kocho, and Kyōjurō Rengoku. The trademark was denied for the clothing patterns of Tanjirō Kamado, Nezuko Kamado, and Zenitsu Agatsuma.


My thought is that the Tanjiro sweatshirt was marketed/labeled as official Demon Slayer merchandise when it isn't. Basically, you can take the same checker pattern as Tanjiro's robe and put it on your own merchandise, but you can't call it Demon Slayer merchandise. Think of those knock-off Halloween costumes where you know what it is, but in this case it'd be called "Historical Vampire Hunter" or something instead.


Now I wonder if the sweatshirt and bath towels was made to be as exact as possible to the licensed sweatshirts, like the form of the towel and sweatshirt had the same stiching patterns and form as the licensed stuff.
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GracieLizzy



Joined: 26 Sep 2006
Posts: 551
Location: Sunderland, England, UK
PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:36 am Reply with quote
ANN_Lynzee wrote:
My thought is that the Tanjiro sweatshirt was marketed/labeled as official Demon Slayer merchandise when it isn't. Basically, you can take the same checker pattern as Tanjiro's robe and put it on your own merchandise, but you can't call it Demon Slayer merchandise. Think of those knock-off Halloween costumes where you know what it is, but in this case it'd be called "Historical Vampire Hunter" or something instead.


I was thinking that too as I read this article, that they must have slapped the Demon Slayer logo on the package rather than going the route you described. Whenever I think about the unlicensed knock off party costumes / cosplay I always wind up thinking of "Where's The Stripey Dude" (the Where's Wally / Waldo knock off):

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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@



Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Posts: 3498
Location: IN your nightmares
PostPosted: Mon Sep 13, 2021 6:11 am Reply with quote
Ak Animax wrote:
Some Mainland Copy cat Chinese companies ( like Alibaba) are already selling anime related merchandise, anime lamps and products in southeast Asian countries without
Prior permission of the Owner and licence holder!!
China is also involved which not surprising
In practice, applying some sort of trademark law to products shipped overseas is very difficult. Within China, the government actually does do a lot and is pretty strict when it comes to curbing sales of products from illegitimate sources. The same cannot be said about really any online retailers who specialize in foreign customers. Actually that's why Alibaba and other Chinese online platforms are seen as bastions of piracy, because that's were really no regulation exists, or is not really worth the effort to enforce.

And I think that's why we don't see a lot of Japanese online retailers willing to deal with overseas customers. It just invites the inevitable piracy because the Japanese government just doesn't want to deal with international trademark law or enforcement. The ones that do sell overseas maybe are sites registered in another country or have to go through some certification process to prove all their products are legit, not sure how it works.
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