In Japan, B-by-C (B-by-C, Chiyoda, Tokyo), which sells beauty equipment such as EMS for the face, acquired the design rights related to EMS equipment for the face to MTG, a major beauty appliance manufacturer of EMS equipment that handles SIXPAD. Alleging infringement, the lawsuit was filed with the Tokyo District Court seeking damages of approximately 25 million yen and an injunction to suspend production of the product.
According to the complaint, B-by-C is concerned with MTG's "SIXPAD Facial Fit" (released in October 2022).
The structure, in which the two pads attached to both ends of the device are applied to the left and right cheeks to stimulate the muscles of the face, is called the so-called headphone type, and has recently become a hot topic.
B-by-C is a headphone-type EMS facial device “Face Player” that the company registered as a design in September 2019, and the design of MTG products is similar.
B-by-C face player design registration
We were able to confirm two related design rights of the company.
Without checking the complaint, it is unclear what the design rights that were exercised this time are, but it is highly likely that it is one of these.
SIXPAD Facial Fit
Several related design rights have been found, some of which have undergone procedures for confidential design (nondisclosure for a certain period of time), and the full details are unknown. We will introduce some of the unique contents that are currently open to the public.
The following applications use the same image, but each specifies a different article. It is interesting to note that these are related designs and are registered in an extremely unusual way of filing.
JPD1727218S：Facial massager
JPD1727208S：training equipment
Since it is a design lawsuit, it is necessary to compare B-by-C's design rights and SIXPAD Facial Fit.
If you compare them based on the image of the design rights of MTG, which is supposed to be the same, you can see many differences even if you say "the same headphone type".
In litigation, the similarities and differences will be compared.
I would like to pay attention to future trends.