KTE KT News
17/07/2024

Notice of the Settlement of Civil Litigation against YOUZU (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD. Related to Intellectual Property Infringement

KOEI TECMO INFORMATION

We, KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (headquartered in Yokohama, Japan; President & COO Hisashi Koinuma), announced today that we had entered into a settlement agreement (the “Settlement”) with YOUZU (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD. (“Defendant”) by out-of-court settlement in which Defendant admitted and apologized for their infringement regarding the lawsuit filed in the Tokyo District Court on April 8, 2024 claiming damages and requesting for injunctions for intellectual property infringement.

1. Defendant

(1)Name of Company

YOUZU (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.

(2)Registered Office Address

29 MEDIA CIRCLE, #09-01, ALICE@MEDIAPOLIS, SINGAPORE (138565)

(3)Business Profile

Distribution and operation of smartphone-based game apps such as “Sengoku Legend: Uprising”, “Infinity Kingdom” and “Dynasty Origins”.

2. Outline of the case

The music and images created for our game series “Nobunaga’s Ambition” and “Taiko Risshiden” and our trademarks are our intellectual property rights, but Defendant was continuously using them for online advertising of the Defendant’s game app (the “Defendant App”) without obtaining our license. We have determined these uses constitute infringements of copyright and trademark and sent out warnings on Defendant’s infringement activities to encourage changes in their online advertising. Even though Defendant had voluntarily made a promise to delete all the suspect infringement items, Defendant’s infringement activities continued. Because the situation remained the same as before and no changes had been made, we determined to file a complaint against Defendant. * Please refer to our release on April 8, 2024 “Notice Concerning Civil

3. Outline of the Settlement and our reason of acceptance

Defendant admitted their intellectual property infringement against our copyrights and trademarks by creating and distributing their online advertising and apologized formally for the immense inconvenience to us (https://narisen.yoozoo.co.jp/). Because Defendant has infringed upon our intellectual property rights several times to this day, we were aiming, as our main purpose by filing civil litigation, to prevent their further infringement. In the Settlement, we and Defendant have reached an agreement and decided measures dealing with prevention of further infringement in the future and we judged the condition of the agreement meets our company policy for protecting the intellectual property rights. For that reason, we decided to accept the Settlement.

Using our intellectual property and our company name in public without permission damages our intellectual property’s value and lead to misconceptions by users’ and our partners’ that we are related to the Defendant App. Furthermore, infringement like this causes some disadvantages to users and our partners as well, so our group will continue to take a firm position against this kind of infringement to protect our intellectual property and make further efforts to pursue our goal of becoming “The World’s No.1 Digital Entertainment Company” in order to enrich the hearts of users worldwide.

For media inquiries, contact:

KOEI TECMO HOLDINGS CO., LTD.

Legal Department (Nishimura / Sakurai)

TEL:045-562-8111

Corporate Information Website https://www.koeitecmo.co.jp/