G.R. No.

115758

March 19, 2002

ELIDAD C. KHO, doing business under the name and style of KEC COSMETICS LABORATORY, petitioner, vs. HON. COURT OF APPEALS, SUMMERVILLE GENERAL MERCHANDISING and COMPANY, and ANG TIAM CHAY, respondents. FACTS: The petitioner alleged that she is the registered owner of the copyrights Chin Chun Su and Oval Facial Cream Container/Case as evidenced by certificates of copyright registrations and patent rights on Chun Chun Su & Device and Chin Chun Su (medicated cream) after she purchased it from Quintin Cheng (previous registered owner in the Philippine Patent Office [PPO]). Meanwhile, there was a decline in the petitioners business income due to the advertisement and sale made by Summerville on petitioners products under the same brand name and in similar containers. According to Summerville, they are the exclusive and authorized importer, re-packer and distributor of Chin Chun Su products manufactured by Shun Yi Factory of Taiwan and that said company authorized them to register its trade name Chin Chun Su Mediated Cream with the PPO. The application for preliminary injunction filed by petitioner was granted. Hence, respondents moved for reconsideration, which was denied. The respondents then moved for nullification of said preliminary injunction with the CA. The latter granted its petition. ISSUE: WON the copyright and patent over the name and container of the beauty cream product entitle the registrant to its EXCLUSIVE use and ownership . HELD: NO. The petitioner has no right for the EXCLUSIVE use of the trade name and its container. In order to be entitled to its exclusive use, the user must sufficiently prove that she registered or used it before anybody else did. This, petitioner failed to do. Trademark, copyright and patents are different intellectual property rights that cannot be interchanged with one another. A trademark is any visible sign capable of distinguishing the goods (trademark) or services (service mark) of an enterprise and shall include a stamped or marked container of goods. In relation thereto, a trade name means the name or designation identifying or distinguishing an enterprise. Meanwhile, the scope of a copyright is confined to literary and artistic works which are original intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain protected from the moment of their creation. Patentable inventions, on the other hand, refer to any technical solution of a problem in any field of human activity which is new, involves an inventive step and is industrially applicable.