Japanese Company Zoom Wins ¥180 Mil. Lawsuit Against U.S. Operator of Meeting Service Provider

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:34 JST, April 24, 2026

The Tokyo District Court on Friday ordered the U.S. operator of web meeting service provider Zoom and another company to pay about ¥180 million in damages to Japanese music-related electronics producer Zoom, which claimed that a logo similar to its own had been used without permission.

The Japanese company had also sought to get the companies to stop using the logo, but that part of the lawsuit was not accepted.

In 2006, the Japanese company trademarked its logo horizontally written using the alphabet.

The lawsuit pointed out that the logo of the U.S. company looks similar as that of the Japanese company because they are both written horizontally using the same four letters of the alphabet. This, the lawsuit claimed, was a violation of the Japanese company’s trademark rights.

The U.S. company countered that it had a high degree of brand recognition with the logo as a web meeting service provider, saying, “There is no risk of mistaking our company’s logo with the plaintiff’s logo, as the plaintiff has no record of providing the same service.”