Enix Co. Inc. v. High Score Media Work Co., Inc. and one other

Tokyo District Court, February 26, 1987

Facts

On January 26, 1987 obligee Enix Co., Inc., began to market its software for the family computer game "Dragon Quest II." Enix published and distributed a sample of this family computer game software in family computer genre magazines with the conditions that 1) there would be no experimentation to discover the inner workings of the program, and 2) there would be no publication of the actual image of the software without prior understanding. Obligor High Score Media Work Co., Inc., publishes the family computer genre magazine High Score and obligor Eiwa Publishing Co., Inc. is the sales agent for that magazine. High Score Media Work not only published without authorization 11 pages explaining the inner workings of the program for "Dragon Quest II" in its March issue of High Score, released at the end of January, it has also prepared to print approximately 30 pages of detailed explanation of the program in its April issue of High Score, scheduled for release at the end of February. On February 17 Enix requested this court grant temporary measures prohibiting obligors from both publishing any images of "Dragon Quest II" in High Score and selling copies of High Score in which it has published any such images.

Gist

Temporary measures granted.

  1. "Obligor High Score Media Work Co., Inc. shall not publish any images which actually express anything about the software for the family computer game "Dragon Quest II" (copyright issued on January 26, 1987 to Obligee Enix Co., Inc., Bird Studio Ltd., Armor Project Ltd., and Chain Soft Co., Inc.) in the April, 1987 issue of its monthly magazine High Score or in any subsequent issues.
  2. Obligor Eiwa Publishing Co., Inc. shall not sell any issue of the above-named magazine in which are published any images prohibited in the above paragraph.
  3. It is hereby ordered that all copies of the above-named magazine presently held at the obligee's (sic) actual address shall be remanded to the custody of the enforcement officer of the Tokyo District Court."

(translation by Vicki L. Beyer)

Temple University Japan