forced labor-property seizure

Forced labor victims seize four patent rights of Mitsubishi

GWANGJU, April 5 (Yonhap) -- A group of victims of Japan's wartime forced labor has seized additional patent rights of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a Japanese firm that used forced laborers during World War II, a civic group said Wednesday.

The Daejeon District Court recently decided to seize four patent rights of Mitsubishi at the request of two surviving victims and the families of two other late forced labor victims, according to the civic group.

In February 2014, the victims won a compensation suit against Mitsubishi and the ruling was upheld by an appeals court later that year. The case is currently pending at the Supreme Court.

The court put the compensation Mitsubishi owes to the victims at 680 million won (US$518,490) at the time of the first ruling.

The court also granted the victims the right to collect the compensation from Mitsubishi at that time, but they had been putting off collecting the money.

The victims decided there is no reason to delay exercising their rights anymore at a time when the government has announced a plan to compensate the victims without Japan's involvement against the victims' wish, the civic group said.

Currently, a total of 10 Korean-based patent rights and two trademark rights of Mitsubishi are under the seizure and debt collection process in connection with the forced mobilization of workers.

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