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Title
Kho vs. Court of Appeals

Case Ponente Decision Date

G.R. No. 115758 DE LEON, JR., Mar 19, 2002
J

A woman !les a complaint against a company for copyright and

patent infringement over a beauty cream product, but the court
rules in favor of the company, stating that she did not have
trademark rights and failed to comply with procedural rules.

Case Digest (G.R. No. 115758)

Facts:

The case involves a complaint !led by Elidad C. Kho, doing business

under the name and style of KEC Cosmetics Laboratory, against
Summerville General Merchandising and Company and Ang Tiam
Chay. Kho alleged that she had copyright and patent rights on Chin
Chun Su cream products. However, the respondents advertised and
sold petitioner's cream products under the brand name Chin Chun
Sun, in similar containers that petitioner uses, thereby misleading
the public. The trial court granted a writ of preliminary injunction,
but pending appeal, the trial court rendered a !nal decision ruling
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 that petitioner does not have trademark rights on the name and
container of the beauty cream product. The Court of Appeals
nulli!ed the writ of preliminary injunction issued and denied
petitioner's motion for reconsideration.

Issue:

The main issues raised in the case are: 1) whether the petitioner's
copyright and patent registration of the name and container of the
beauty cream product entitles her to the exclusive use of the same; 2)
whether the Court of Appeals erred in not dismissing the petition for
certiorari for non-compliance with the rule on forum shopping; and
3) whether the Court of Appeals unduly delayed the resolution of the
petitioner's motion for reconsideration.

Ruling:

The court ruled in favor of the respondents, stating that the

petitioner does not have trademark rights on the name and container
of the beauty cream product. The court explained that trademark,
copyright, and patents are di"erent intellectual property rights that
cannot be interchanged with one another. The name and container
of a beauty cream product are proper subjects of a trademark, and in
order to be entitled to exclusive use, the user must prove that they
registered or used it before anyone else did. The petitioner's
copyright and patent registration of the name and container do not
guarantee her the right to exclusive use because they are not
appropriate subjects of intellectual rights. Therefore, the court held
that the petitioner did not have a clear right over the subject trade
name and its container to the exclusion of others.

The court also ruled that the petitioner should have !led a comment
on, not a motion to dismiss, the petition for certiorari before the
Court of Appeals. The court explained that non-compliance with the
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 rule on forum shopping and the technical objection of non-
compliance with Supreme Court Circular No. 28-91 cannot be raised
through a motion to dismiss. The court emphasized that the granting
of an injunctive writ based on a technical ground rather than
compliance with the requisites for the issuance of the same is
contrary to the primary objective of legal procedure, which is to
serve as a means to dispense justice to the deserving party.

Regarding the delay in resolving the petitioner's motion for

reconsideration, the court found that the petitioner contributed to
this delay by !ling successive contentious motions. However, the
court stated that non-observance of the period for deciding cases or
their incidents does not render such judgments ine"ective or void.
The court also ruled that the advertisements complained of were not
contemptuous and that the decision nullifying the injunctive writ
was immediately executory.

In conclusion, the court a#rmed the decision of the Court of

Appeals, ruling in favor of the respondents and denying the
petitioner's claims.
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