United feature syndicate vs munsingwear

Facts: Petitioner is asking for the cancellation of the registration of trademark CHARLIE BROWN
(Registration No. SR. 4224) in the name of respondent MUNSINGWEAR, alleging that petitioner 
is damaged by the registration of the trademark CHARLIE BROWN of T-Shirts under Class 25
with the Registration No. SR-4224 dated September 12, 1979 in the name of Munsingwear 
Creation Manufacturing Co., Inc., on the following grounds: (1) that respondent was not
entitled
to the registration of the mark CHARLIE BROWN, & DEVICE at the time of application for 
registration; (2) that CHARLIE BROWN is a character creation or a pictorial illustration, the
copyright to which is exclusively owned worldwide by the petitioner; (3) that as the owner of
the pictorial illustration CHARLIE BROWN, petitioner has since 1950 and continuously up to the
present, used and reproduced the same to the exclusion of others; (4) that the respondent-
registrant has no bona fide use of the trademark in commerce in the Philippines prior to its
application for registration.

-It uses, the trademark "CHARLIE BROWN" & "DEVICE" on children's wear such as T-
shirts,undershirts, sweaters, brief and sandos, in class 25; whereas "CHARLIE BROWN" is used
only by petitioner as character, in a pictorial illustration used in a comic strip appearing in
newspapers and magazines. It has no trademark significance and therefore respondent-
registrant's use of "CHARLIE BROWN" & "DEVICE" is not in conflict with the petitioner's use of 
"CHARLIE BROWN" -Relied on the ruling on October 2, 1984 in which the Director of the
Philippine Patent Office
rendered a decision in this case holding that a copyright registration like that of the name and
likeness of CHARLIE BROWN may not provide a cause of action for the cancellation of a
trademark registration.
Issue: WHETHER THE RESPONDENT COURT OF APPEALS COMMITTED GRAVE ABUSE OF
DISCRETION AMOUNTING TO EXCESS OF JURISDICTION WHEN BY DISMISSING THE APPEAL TO
IT FROM THE DECISION OF THE DIRECTOR OF PATENTS, IT KNOWINGLY DISREGARDED ITS OWN
DECISION IN AC-GR. SP. NO. 0342, WHICH WAS AFFIRMED BY THIS HONORABLE SUPREME
COURT TO THE EFFECT THAT A COPYRIGHTED CHARACTER MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATED AS A
TRADEMARK BY ANOTHER UNDER PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 49.
Held:The petitioner is impressed with merit. Since the name "CHARLIE BROWN" and its pictorial
representation were covered by a copyright registration way back in 1950 the same are entitled
to protection under PD No. 49,
otherwise known as the "Decree on Intellectual Property" Aside from its copyright registration,
petitioner is also the owner of several trademark registrations and application for the name and
likeness of "CHARLIE BROWN" which is the duly registered trademark and copyright of
petitioner United Feature Syndicate Inc. as early as 1957 and additionally also as TV SPECIALS
featuring the "PEANUTS" characters "CHARLIE BROWN´.It is undeniable from the records
that petitioner is the actual owner of said trademark due to its prior registration with the Patent's
Office.

Feist Publications inc vs Rural Tel SERVICE CO.

Brief Fact Summary. A publishing company used information from a telephone directory to
publish its own directory.

Synopsis of Rule of Law. To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the
author, which means that the work was independently created by the author, and it possesses
at least some minimal degree of creativity. A work may be original even thought it closely
resembles other works so long as the similarity is fortuitous, not the result of copying.

Facts. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc. (Plaintiff) provides telephone service to several
communities. Due to a state regulation, it must issue an annual telephone directory, so it
published a directory consisting of white and yellow pages. The yellow pages have
advertisements that generate revenue. Feist Publications, Inc. (Defendant) is a publishing
company whose directory covers a larger range than a typical directory. Defendant distributes
their telephone books free of charge, and they also generate revenue through the advertising in
the yellow pages. Plaintiff refused to give a license to Defendant for the phone numbers in the
area, so Defendant used them without Plaintiff’s consent. Rural sued for copyright
infringement.
Issue.:Are the names, addresses, and phone numbers in a telephone directory able to be
copyrighted?
Held: We conclude that the names, towns, and telephone numbers copied by Feist were not
original to Rural and therefore were not protected by the copyright in Rural's combined white
and yellow pages directory. As a constitutional matter, copyright protects only those
constituent elements of a work that possess more than a de minimis quantum of creativity.
Rural's white pages, limited to basic subscriber information and arranged alphabetically, fall
short of the mark. As a statutory matter, 17 U.S.C. � 101 does not afford protection [p*364]
from copying to a collection of facts that are selected, coordinated, and arranged in a way that
utterly lacks originality. Given that some works must fail, we cannot imagine a more likely
candidate. Indeed, were we to hold that Rural's white pages pass muster, it is hard to believe
that any collection of facts could fail.
Because Rural's white pages lack the requisite originality, Feist's use of the listings cannot
constitute infringement. This decision should not be construed as demeaning Rural's efforts in
compiling its directory, but rather as making clear that copyright rewards originality, not effort.
As this Court noted more than a century ago, “'great praise may be due to the plaintiffs for their
industry and enterprise in publishing this paper, yet the law does not contemplate their being
rewarded in this way.'” Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S., at 105. The judgment of the Court of Appeals
is Reversed.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN concurs in the judgment.