On September 24th, The Japan Patent Office made its final call to issue a “decision of refusal” for the trademark application for the pattern of the clothes worn by the main character, Tanjiro Kamado in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

The JPO issued a “Notice of Reasons for Refusal” stating that the pattern of Tanjiro’s haori is ” a kind of so-called” checkered pattern “”.

Shueisha argued with a written opinion on July 6.

They requested to approve the trademark registration because it does not correspond to “decorative ground pattern” because “the components include not only squares but also rectangles” and “surrounded by a black border”.

However, on September 17, the JPO issued a “decision of refusal” saying “the black line is hard to recognize at first glance because there is no margin on the outside.”

Additionally, Nezuko and Zenitsu Agatsuma designs also came out to be “only decorative background patterns” and are hard to distinguish from other products.

Thus, all three patterns were rejected under the reasons that they are “decorative geometric pattern[s]” that is found in previous historical designs.

On May 26th the office confirmed, only 3 out of 6 designs were able to pass the bar and the remaining were under probation.

The three accepted designs are based on Tomioka Giyuu, Shinobu Kochou, and Rengoku Kyojuro.

Source: Huffington Post