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Case title: ELIDAD C. KHO, doing business under the name and style of KEC COSMETICS LABORATORY vs.

HON. COURT OF APPEALS, SUMMERVILLE GENERAL MERCHANDISING and COMPANY, and ANG TIAM CHAY Petitioners Claim: Petitioner alleges that she is the registered owner of the copyrights Chin Chun Su and Oval Facial Cream Container/Case, as shown by Certificates of Copyright Registration No. 0-1358 and No. 0-3678; that she also has patent rights on Chin Chun Su & Device and Chin Chun Su for medicated cream after purchasing the same from Quintin Cheng, the registered owner thereof in the Supplemental Register of the Philippine Patent Office on February 7, 1980 under Registration Certificate No. 4529; that respondent Summerville advertised and sold petitioner's cream products under the brand name Chin Chun Su, in similar containers that petitioner uses, thereby misleading the public, and resulting in the decline in the petitioner's business sales and income; and, that the respondents should be enjoined from allegedly infringing on the copyrights and patents of the petitioner. Respondents Claim: Respondent alleges that Summerville is the exclusive and authorized importer, re-packer and distributor of Chin Chun Su products manufactured by Shun Yi Factory of Taiwan; that the said Taiwanese manufacturing company authorized Summerville to register its trade name Chin Chun Su Medicated Cream with the Philippine Patent Office and other appropriate governmental agencies; that KEC Cosmetics Laboratory of the petitioner obtained the copyrights through misrepresentation and falsification; and, that the authority of Quintin Cheng, assignee of the patent registration certificate, to distribute and market Chin Chun Su products in the Philippines had already been terminated by the said Taiwanese Manufacturing Company. Issue/s: whether ornot the copyright and patent over the name and container of a beauty cream product would entitle the registrant to the use and ownership over the same to the exclusion of others. Ruling: Petitioner has no right to support her claim for the exclusive use of the subject trade name and its container. The name and container of a beauty cream product are proper subjects of a trademark inasmuch as the same falls squarely within its definition. In order to be entitled to exclusively use the same in the sale of the beauty cream product, the user must sufficiently prove that she registered or used it before anybody else did. The petitioner's copyright and patent registration of the name and container would not guarantee her the right to the exclusive use of the same for the reason that they are not appropriate subjects of the said intellectual rights. Consequently, a preliminary injunction order cannot be issued for the reason that the petitioner has not proven that she has a clear right over the said name and container to the exclusion of others, not having proven that she has registered a trademark thereto or used the same before anyone did.

Case Title: PEARL & DEAN (PHIL.), INCORPORATED vs. SHOEMART, INCORPORATED, and NORTH EDSA MARKETING, INCORPORATED Petitioners Claim: Petitioner Pearl and Dean, Inc. was able to secure a copyright registration on advertising units referred to as light boxes and was also able to secure the trademark of Poster Ads. Sometime in 1989, Pearl and Dean, received reports that exact copies of its light boxes were installed at SM City and in the fastfood section of SM Cubao. Upon investigation, Pearl and Dean found out that aside from the two (2) reported SM branches, light boxes similar to those it manufactures were also installed in two (2) other SM stores. It further discovered that defendantappellant North Edsa Marketing Inc. (NEMI), through its marketing arm, Prime Spots Marketing Services, was set up primarily to sell advertising space in lighted display units located in SMIs different branches. Pearl and Dean noted that NEMI is a sister company of SMI.In the light of its discoveries, Pearl and Dean sent a letter dated December 11, 1991 to both SMI and NEMI enjoining them to cease using the subject light boxes and to remove the same from SMIs establishments. It also demanded the discontinued use of the trademark Poster Ads, and the payment to Pearl and Dean of compensatory damages in the amount of Twenty Million Pesos (P20,000,000.00). Respondents Claim: SMI maintained that it independently developed its poster panels using commonly known techniques and available technology, without notice of or reference to Pearl and Deans copyright. SMI noted that the registration of the mark Poster Ads was only for stationeries such as letterheads, envelopes, and the like. Besides, according to SMI, the word Poster Ads is a generic term which cannot be appropriated as a trademark, and, as such, registration of such mark is invalid. It also stressed that Pearl and Dean is not entitled to the reliefs prayed for in its complaint since its advertising display units contained no copyright notice, in violation of Section 27 of P.D. 49. SMI alleged that Pearl and Dean had no cause of action against it and that the suit was purely intended to malign SMIs good name. Issue/s: 1) if the engineering or technical drawings of an advertising display unit (light box) are granted copyright protection (copyright certificate of registration) by the National Library, is the light box depicted in such engineering drawings ipso facto also protected by such copyright? 2) should the light box be registered separately and protected by a patent issued by the Bureau of Patents Trademarks and Technology Transfer (now Intellectual Property Office) in addition to the copyright of the engineering drawings? 3) can the owner of a registered trademark legally prevent others from using such trademark if it is a mere abbreviation of a term descriptive of his goods, services or business? Ruling:1) No. P & D secured its copyright under the classification class O work. This being so, petitioners copyright protection extended only to the technical drawings and not to the light box itself because the latter was not at all in the category of

prints, pictorial illustrations, advertising copies, labels, tags and box wraps. Stated otherwise, even as we find that P & D indeed owned a valid copyright, the same could have referred only to the technical drawings within the category of pictorial illustrations. It could not have possibly stretched out to include the underlying light box. The strict application[9] of the laws enumeration in Section 2 prevents us from giving petitioner even a little leeway, that is, even if its copyright certificate was entitled Advertising Display Units. What the law does not include, it excludes, and for the good reason: the light box was not a literary or artistic piece which could be copyrighted under the copyright law. And no less clearly, neither could the lack of statutory authority to make the light box copyrightable be remedied by the simplistic act of entitling the copyright certificate issued by the National Library as Advertising Display Units. 2) Yes Petitioner never secured a patent for the light boxes. It therefore acquired no patent rights which could have protected its invention, if in fact it really was. And because it had no patent, petitioner could not legally prevent anyone from manufacturing or commercially using the contraption. To be able to effectively and legally preclude others from copying and profiting from the invention, a patent is a primordial requirement. No patent, no protection. The ultimate goal of a patent system is to bring new designs and technologies into the public through disclosure. Ideas, once, disclosed to the public without protection of a valid patent, are subject to appropriation without significant restraint. The Patent Law has a three-fold purpose: first, patent law seeks to foster and reward invention; second, it promotes disclosures of inventions to stimulate further innovation and to permit the public to practice the invention once the patent expires; third, the stringent requirements for patent protection seek to ensure that ideas in the public domain remain there for the free use of the public. It is only after an exhaustive examination by the patent office that patent is issued. Therefore, not having gone through the arduous examination for patents, petitioner cannot exclude other s from the manufacture, sale or commercial use of the light boxes on the sole basis of its copyright certificate over the technical drawings. 3) No. Poster Ads was generic and incapable of being used as a trademark because it was used in the field of poster advertising, the very business engaged in by petitioner. Secondary meaning means that a word or phrase originally incapable of exclusive appropriation with reference to an article in the market (because it is geographically or otherwise descriptive) might nevertheless have been used for so long and so exclusively by one producer with reference to his article that, in the trade and to that branch of the purchasing public, the word or phrase has come to mean that the article was his property.[29] The admission by petitioners own expert witness that he himself could not associate Poster Ads with petitioner P & D because it was too generic definitely precluded the application of this exception.

Case title: JESSIE G. CHING vs. WILLIAM M. SALINAS, SR., WILLIAM M. SALINAS, JR., JOSEPHINE L. SALINAS, JENNIFER Y. SALINAS, ALONTO SOLAIMAN SALLE, JOHN ERIC I. SALINAS, NOEL M. YABUT (Board of Directors and Officers of WILAWARE PRODUCT CORPORATION) Petitioners claim: Ching and Joseph Yu were issued by the National Library Certificates of Copyright Registration and Deposit of the work described therein as Leaf Spring Eye Bushing for Automobile. Ching requested the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for police/investigative assistance for the apprehension and prosecution of illegal manufacturers, producers and/or distributors of the works.As such, inventory items were seized from Salinas for violating the provisions of ra 8293. He claims that R.A. No. 8293, otherwise known as the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines provides in no uncertain terms that copyright protection automatically attaches to a work by the sole fact of its creation, irrespective of its mode or form of expression, as well as of its content, quality or purpose. The law gives a non-inclusive definition of work as referring to original intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain protected from the moment of their creation; and includes original ornamental designs or models for articles of manufacture, whether or not registrable as an industrial design and other works of applied art under Section 172.1(h) of R.A. No. 8293. As such, the petitioner insists, notwithstanding the classification of the works as either literary and/or artistic, the said law, likewise, encompasses works which may have a bearing on the utility aspect to which the petitioners utility designs were classified. Moreover, according to the petitioner, what the Copyright Law protects is the authors intellectual creation, regardless of whether it is one with utilitarian functions or incorporated in a useful article produced on an industrial scale. The petitioner also maintains that the law does not provide that the intended use or use in industry of an article eligible for patent bars or invalidates its registration under the Law on Copyright. The test of protection for the aesthetic is not beauty and utility, but art for the copyright and invention of original and ornamental design for design patents.[16] In like manner, the fact that his utility designs or models for articles of manufacture have been expressed in the field of automotive parts, or based on something already in the public domain does not automatically remove them from the protection of the Law on Copyright. Respomdents claim: The respondents averred that the works covered by the certificates issued by the National Library are not artistic in nature; they are considered automotive spare parts and pertain to technology. They aver that the models are not original, and as such are the proper subject of a patent, not copyright.respondents aver that the work of the petitioner is essentially a technical solution to the problem of wear and tear in automobiles, the substitution of materials, i.e., from rubber to plastic matter of polyvinyl chloride, an oil resistant soft texture plastic material strong enough to endure pressure brought about by the vibration of

the counter bearing and thus brings bushings. Such work, the respondents assert, is the subject of copyright under Section 172.1 of R.A. No. 8293. The respondents posit that a technical solution in any field of human activity which is novel may be the subject of a patent, and not of a copyright. They insist that the certificates issued by the National Library are only certifications that, at a point in time, a certain work was deposited in the said office. Furthermore, the registration of copyrights does not provide for automatic protection. Citing Section 218.2(b) of R.A. No. 8293, the respondents aver that no copyright is said to exist if a party categorically questions its existence and legality. Moreover, under Section 2, Rule 7 of the Implementing Rules of R.A. No. 8293, the registration and deposit of work is not conclusive as to copyright outlay or the time of copyright or the right of the copyright owner. The respondents maintain that a copyright exists only when the work is covered by the protection of R.A. No. 8293. Issue/s: Whether or not copyright granted by law can be said to arise in favor of the petitioner despite the issuance of the certificates of copyright registration and the deposit of the Leaf Spring Eye Bushing and Vehicle Bearing Cushion Ruling: No. as gleaned from the specifications appended to the application for a copyright certificate filed by the petitioner, the said Leaf Spring Eye Bushing for Automobile is merely a utility model.These are not literary or artistic works. They are not intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain, or works of applied art. They are certainly not ornamental designs or one having decorative quality or value. It bears stressing that the focus of copyright is the usefulness of the artistic design, and not its marketability. The central inquiry is whether the article is a work of art. [33] Works for applied art include all original pictorials, graphics, and sculptural works that are intended to be or have been embodied in useful article regardless of factors such as mass production, commercial exploitation, and the potential availability of design patent protection.[34] As gleaned from the description of the models and their objectives, these articles are useful articles which are defined as one having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. Indeed, while works of applied art, original intellectual, literary and artistic works are copyrightable, useful articles and works of industrial design are not.[35] A useful article may be copyrightable only if and only to the extent that such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of the utilitarian aspects of the article. We agree with the contention of the petitioner (citing Section 171.10 of R.A. No. 8293), that the authors intellectual creation, regardless of whether it is a creation with utilitarian functions or incorporated in a useful article produced on an industrial scale, is protected by copyright law. However, the law refers to a work of applied art which is an artistic creation. It bears stressing that there is no copyright protection

for works of applied art or industrial design which have aesthetic or artistic features that cannot be identified separately from the utilitarian aspects of the article.[36] Functional components of useful articles, no matter how artistically designed, have generally been denied copyright protection unless they are separable from the useful article.[37] In this case, the petitioners models are not works of applied art, nor artistic works. They are utility models, useful articles, albeit with no artistic design or value.

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