A news report says that a total of 30 terms that trended in 2025 have been nominated for this year\u2019s \u201cBuzzword of the Year\u201d award. These nominated words reflect the social and economic climate, such as \u201cTrump Tariffs,\u201d \u201cKokokomai (old-old-old rice),\u201d \u201cHigh Prices of Commodities,\u201d \u201cNational Treasure (I saw it),\u201d \u201cMyakumyaku,\u201d and \u201cEmergency Gun Hunting \/ Bear Attacks,\u201d among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As many of these buzzwords are widely used by the public, their distinctiveness often becomes an issue from a trademark perspective. For example, the phrases \u201cMogumogu Time\u201d and \u201cSodane~,\u201d which were used by the Japanese women\u2019s curling team that won a medal at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics and subsequently gained extensive media exposure, were nominated for the Buzzword of the Year in that same year. However, trademark applications for these terms were refused on the grounds of lack of distinctiveness under Article 3(1)(vi) of the Trademark Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other grounds for refusal that may apply to trademark applications for buzzwords include violation of public order or morality (Article 4(1)(vii)), inclusion of another person\u2019s name (Article 4(1)(viii)), identicalness or similarity with another person\u2019s prior-filed or registered trademark (Article 4(1)(xi)), and likelihood of confusion as to source (Article 4(1)(xv)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The winner of this year\u2019s Buzzword of the Year award is scheduled to be announced on December 1, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A news report says that a total of 30 terms that trended in 2025 have been nominated for this year\u2019s \u201cBuzzword of the Year\u201d award. These nominated words reflect the social and economic climate, such…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_locale":"en_US","_original_post":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/?p=3184","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-en-trademarks","en-US"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3200,"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199\/revisions\/3200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sakae-pat.jp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}