On the 6th of July, the Mainichi reported on a deal regarding the acquisition of trademark rights by Yahoo Japan Corp. from a subsidiary of Verizon Media in the United States. According to this deal, Yahoo Japan will purchase the trademark rights for the use of the Yahoo brand in Japan for 178.5 billion yen, or about 1.6 billion US dollars. 

Thanks to this deal, Yahoo Japan, which is an internet and e-commerce giant in the country, does not have to pay royalties anymore for the brand and licensed technologies. Yahoo Japan’s owner Z Holdings Corp. will also have more flexibility in business development and in general brand usage. 

As Verizon Media is being acquired by Apollo Global Management Inc. it is expected that a new license agreement will be in place in the second half of 2021, when the acquisition will be complete.

The Japanese Z Holdings Corporation is a subsidiary of the SoftBank Group, and merged with Line Corp. in March of 2021. They want to expand their global online services to better compete against tech giants from China and the United States.

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