Japanese Court Hands Dodgers a Sweet Victory : Trademarks: The team will be allowed to sell candy with its name on it. The decision reverses a 1978 ruling by the country’s patent office.

After being shut out for 13 years, the Los Angeles Dodgers finally won in Tokyo.

It wasn’t a victory on the field but in a Japanese court.

Major League Baseball, which licenses team names for use on a variety of products, bested Japanese bureaucrats who had barred the Dodgers from using their own name on candy sold in Japan.

The Japanese patent office’s 1978 ruling was a precedent that league officials feared would stymie its lucrative business of licensing paraphernalia in the land of ardent baseball fans. Patent office officials ruled that the Dodgers name could not be used because, as pronounced by the Japanese, it sounded too much like “Rogers,” a trademark already owned by a Japanese candy company.

Responding to the league’s appeal, a Tokyo court last week eliminated the unusual prohibition, ruling that Japanese consumers could distinguish between two trademark words.

Although vendors licensed by the league to use team names--including the Dodgers--on a variety of caps, shirts and jackets racked up $40 million in sales in Japan last year, the patent office ruling troubled league officials because they feared that it could be used to prohibit expansion of licensing agreements to more products, said Karen Lipsey, a Washington-based attorney who helped coordinate the legal battle.

Last year, Japan accounted for more than half the league’s foreign sales, excluding Canada. In exchange for giving Major League Baseball the right to control the licensing, each of the 26 teams received about $2 million in royalties from 1991 sales in the United States and abroad.

“It’s important to protect Major League Baseball trademarks in Japan and elsewhere to preserve commercial rights,” Lipsey said.

Buoyed by the court victory, major league officials said they expect to improve on their surprisingly successful record of licensing team names and logos to companies operating in Japan and other countries.

Major League Baseball International Partners, the league entity that controls the licensing of baseball trademarks outside the United States and Canada, said it expects Dodger-brand candy--and candy bearing the symbols of other major league teams--to be available in Japan by June.

“We’re making tremendous strides in licensing abroad, and we’ll be able to penetrate the Japanese market further now that we’ve overcome this trade barrier,” said league spokesman Ricky Clemons.

Sneakers bearing the name of the Dodgers and the New York Yankees will soon be sold in Japan, the league said. The Yankees, Dodgers and San Francisco Giants logos are the most popular in Japan, because their hometowns are popular destinations for Japanese tourists.