PEARL & DEAN V.

SM FACTS: Complaint for infringement of trademark and copyright, and unfair competition filed by petitioner against respondents. Subject of the case are light boxes, which are advertising display units. o Covered by a certificate of copyright registration, petitioner is the owner of the same. o Petitioner also owns the trademark Poster Ads but such is registered for stationeries. Petitioner does not sell stationeries and other similar merchandize. MAIN ISSUE: If the technical drawings are protected under copyright, is the one depicted ipso facto protected too? HELD: NO. Copyright protection in this case is limited to the drawings (of light boxes) alone. o Falls under a category of protected works in the IP Codepictorial illustration. Light boxes (the advertising display units, not the drawings)proper subject of a patent. o However, petitioner did not have a patent over these. ADDITIONAL DOCTRINE FROM THE CASE: An action for unfair competition would prosper even if the petitioner had no trademark registration, but this doctrine cannot apply to this case because Poster Ads is too generic.

HABANA V. ROBLES FACTS: Petitioners filed a complaint for infringement against respondent and Goodwill Publishing. The parties are authors of English textbooks. Petitioners wrote College English for Today (CET), while respondent wrote Developing English Proficiency (DEP). CET and DEP had similar contents, scheme of presentation and illustrative examples. ISSUE: Whether or not plagiarism/copyright infringement was committed. HELD: YES. Generally, there is no infringement when similarity merely results from the fact that both works deal with the same subject or come from a common source, e.g. foreign textbooks. However, in this case, respondent substantially lifted portions of the CET. The Supreme Court ruled that the treatment and manner of presentation of her book, DEP, was a rehash of CET. There is substantial reproduction of a work protected by copyright when the value of such work is substantially diminished and the work is appropriated to an injurious extent. Copying, to be considered as infringement, must produce an injurious effect.