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Elidad Kho V CA
Elidad Kho V CA
) Facts: Petitioner, doing business under the name and style of KEC Cosmetics Laboratory, applied for the issuance of a preliminary injunctive order on the ground that she is entitled to the use of the trademark on Chin Chun Su and its container based on her copyright and patent over the same. Private respondent, on the other hand, alleged that it is the exclusive and authorized importer, re-packer, and distributor of Chin Chun Su products manufactured by Shun-Yi Factory of Taiwan, and that the said Taiwanese manufacturing company authorized Summerville to register its trade name Chin Chun Su Medicated Cream with the Phil. Patent Office and other appropriate govt agencies. The lower court affirmed petitioners motion for preliminary injunction. Private respondents, through a petition for certiorari, appealed to the CA which denied petitioners motion, to which petitioner now appeals. The trial court continued hearing petitioners complaint for final injunction and damages. Said trial court rendered a Decision barring the petitioner from using the trademark Chin Chun Su and upholding the right of the respondents to use the same, but recognizing the copyright of the petitioner over the oval shaped container of her beauty cream ISSUE: 1. WON 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. [no] 2. WON the CA erred in not dismissing the petition for certiorari for non-compliance with the rule on forum shopping. [no] 3. WON the CA unduly delayed the resolution of her motion for resolution. [no] 4. WON the petitioner suffered damages resulting from the alleged delay of the CA in resolving her motion. [moot and academic] 5. WON private respondents should be cited for contempt of court. [no] RATIO: 1. Trademark, copyright and patents are different intellectual property rights that cannot be interchanged with one another. - Trademark: 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 - Trade name: the name or designation identifying or distinguishing an enterprise - Copyright: 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: any technical solution of a problem in any field of human activity, which is new, involves an inventive step and is industrially applicable The mark and container of a beauty cream product are proper subjects of a trademark, not copyright or patent. In order to be entitled to exclusively use the same in the sale of beauty
cream product, the user must sufficiently prove that she registered or used it before anybody else did. Petitioners copyright and patent registration of the name and container would not guarantee her right to the exclusive use of the same for the reason that they are not appropriate subjects of the said intellectual rights. The Court also considered the trial courts finding on the final injunction and damages that the petitioner does not have trademark rights on the name and container of the beauty cream product. The issuance of a final injunction renders any question on the preliminary injunction moot and academic. 2. Forum shopping 1. Sec 6, Rule 66 of the Revised Rules of Civil Procedure provides that in petitions for certiorari before the Sc and the CA, the provisions of Sec 2, R56 shall be observed. Before giving due course thereto, the court may require the respondents to file their comment to and not a motion to dismiss the petition. 2. Under Sec1, R16 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, a MTD shall be filed within the time for but before the filing the answer to the complaint or pleading asserting a claim. 3. substantial justice and equity require the Court not to revive a dissolved writ of injunction in favor of a party without any legal right thereto merely on a technical infirmity. 3. Petitioner contributed to the delay when she filed successive contentious motions in the same proceeding. Also, non-observance of the period for deciding cases or their incidents does
not render such judgments ineffective or void. 4, Whether petitioner suffered due to the delay in resolving a motion for reconsideration is an issue rendered moot and academic by the SC ruling that she has no right over the trademark and, consequently, to the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction. 5. There is nothing contemptuous about the advertisements of private respondent as regards the proceedings in CA-GR SP No. 27803, which merely announced in plain and straightforward language the promulgation of the assailed Decision of the appellate court. Moreover, the said decision nullifying the injunctive writ was immediately executory.