In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Nos. 07-3288, 07-3289, 08-3835, 08-3836, 08-3931, 08-3936S
UNSTAR
,
I
NC
.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,Defendant-Appellant/Cross-Appellee
,
v.
A
LBERTO
-C
ULVER
C
OMPANY
,
Defendant-Appellee,Plaintiff-Appellee/Cross-Appellant
,andB
ANK
O
NE
C
ORPORATION
,
Defendant-Appellee.
K
ANEDA
,
K
OSAN
,
K
ABUSHIKI
K
AISHA
,
Defendant-Appellant/Cross-Appellee.
Appeals from the United States District Courtfor the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.Nos. 01 C 736, 01 CV 5825
—
Ronald A. Guzmán
,
Judge
.
A
RGUED
S
EPTEMBER
17,
2009
—
D
ECIDED
O
CTOBER
28,
2009
2Nos. 07-3288, 07-3289, 08-3835, 08-3836, et al.Before P
OSNER
, M
ANION
, and E
VANS
,
Circuit Judges
.P
OSNER
,
Circuit Judge
. This is an immense, unwieldy,complex, multiparty commercial case, now in its ninth yearand on its second district judge. The case has beenprotracted unduly and should probably have been resolvedon summary judgment years ago.The principal issues concern the interpretation of atrademark licensing agreement and Japanese trade-mark law. In 1980, Alberto-Culver, a major U.S. producerof hair-care and skin-care products (its home page,under hair-care brands, states that “Alberto VO5
—
thecompany’s flagship brand after 53 years remains afavorite of millions of women and men throughoutthe world, offering solutions from daily hair care toinnovative styling products”), sold Japanese trademarkregistrations, covering 13 trademarks. The buyer was a Japanese manufacturer of such products named Sunstar(plus an affiliate, Kaneda, Kosan, Kabushiki Kaisha, thatneed not be discussed separately; we pass over otherimmaterial facts as well). Most of the trademarks areforms or variants of “VO5”; those that are not have no bearing on the litigation. The forms or variants, aspresented in appendices to the license agreement, are asfollows:
Nos. 07-3288, 07-3289, 08-3835, 08-3836, et al.3
of 00
Sunstar Inc v. Albert-Culver Co
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