Tsuburaya Wins Key Ruling in Decades-Long Ultraman Rights Battle With Chaiyo

Tsuburaya Productions won a significant victory in November 2017 in its long-running legal battle over international Ultraman licensing rights, as a Los Angeles jury ruled against UM Corporation, a collaborator of Thailand’s Chaiyo Productions, over the franchise’s rights outside Japan.

The dispute traces back to a document Chaiyo head Sompote Saengduenchai claimed was signed in 1967 by Noboru Tsuburaya, son of Ultraman creator Eiji Tsuburaya, granting Chaiyo broad international licensing power over the Ultraman brand, a claim only surfacing publicly, according to reporting by SciFiJapan, twenty years after its purported signing and only after Noboru Tsuburaya’s death. Under that contested agreement, Chaiyo and its partners had produced original characters, films, and merchandise using the Ultraman name for years, work Tsuburaya Productions consistently contested.

Judge Andre Birotte Jr.’s November 20, 2017 ruling found the licensing document “not authentic” and “not signed by Noboru Tsuburaya,” a unanimous jury verdict that handed Tsuburaya a rare, clear-cut win in a dispute stretching back to 1996. The ruling arrived a few months after separate controversy over Dragon Force: So Long, Ultraman, a Chinese animated film that used an unauthorized Ultraman-styled character in what fans widely criticized as a villainous, unlicensed appropriation of the design.