It is undeniable that Filipinos love music. Filipinos are musical whiz and wannabes.

From that, I
hope you can deduce why I chose this topic. Im one of them a wannabe. I would be sharing with
you, at the end of this report, the reason why I chose this topic.
Who is Roberto del Rosario?
He was a musician and music teacher who played eight instruments, was the president of the
Trebel Music Corporation and has patented more than twenty inventions making him one of the
Filipino inventors with the most number of inventions. He was also awarded a Gold Medal for Best
Inventor in 1985 by the United Nations World Intellectual Property Association and was the first
Filipino to be elected to the executive board of the International Federation of the Inventors
Association.
Among his inventions was the one-man-band or the OMB which was a sing-along-system (SAS), a
combination of a music player, voice taping mechanism, tuner and mixer. This would later be
acknowledged as his highly controversial but duly-patented invention --- the Karaoke Sing Along
System. He was granted a patent for his innovation called the Minus One karaoke.
What is a Karaoke? Karaoke is a combination of the Japanese words kara meaning empty and
okesutora which means orchestra.
It is disputed that although del Rosario was the first person to have the karaoke patented, the idea
of how a karaoke work has long been attributed to a Japanese keyboard artist named Daisuke
Inoue. However, Inoue never applied for any patent over his idea or invention.
On 18 January 1993, del Rosario filed a complaint for patent infringement against Janito
Corporation alleging that he was a patentee of an audio equipment and improved audio equipment
commonly known as the sing-along system or karaoke and that the said corporation was
manufacturing a sing-along system bearing the trademark miyata or miyata karaoke substantially
similar, if not identical, to the sing-along system covered by the patents issued in his favor. He
sought for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction to enjoin the said company from using,
selling and advertising the miyata karaoke brand.
Roberto del Rosario passed away on July 30, 2003.
In one of the media interviews he did, he shared his philosophy in life and that is: Be observant, be
creative. Most of all work hard at what you believe in.
I chose this topic because I wanted to share to all of you these words by del Rosario. These do not
merely refer to inventing and patenting our ideas. These words are actually inspirations for us, that
may we all work hard here in law school at what we believe in so as to achieve our dreams.