Traditionally, damage awards for patent infringement in Japan have been modest. The law was, however, amended to provide for increased awards and, in Information Letter N.S. 191, we reported on one of the first decisions to take advantage of this change. The Tokyo District Court has now gone well beyond what has been awarded previously, however, in awarding damages totaling about $63.5 million for infringement of a patent relating to slot machines. In reaching this decision, the court calculated the plaintiff's profits on its machines which corresponded to the infringements (which it calculated to be about 56% of plaintiff's selling price) and simply multiplied this amount by the number of machines that the infringers had sold.

It is understood that the present decision is under appeal and that there are also invalidity proceedings pending against the patent in suit in the Japanese Patent Office.