Facts:
Pedro Serrano Laktaw v. Mamerto Paglinawan, G.R. No. 11937. April 01, 1918, the Supreme Court En Banc, Araullo, J., writing for the Court.
Plaintiff-appellant
Pedro Serrano Laktaw sued defendant-appellee
Mamerto Paglinawan in the Court of First Instance of the City of Manila by complaint filed February 20, 1915, alleging that he was the registered owner and author of the literary work *Diccionario Hispano-Tagalog* (published 1889; attached as Exhibit A) and that the defendant, without his consent, reproduced and largely copied that work in a book published by defendant entitled *Diccionariong Kastila-Tagalog* (attached as Exhibit B), thereby violating Article 7 of the Law of January 10, 1879, on Intellectual Property; plaintiff prayed that defendant be ordered to withdraw all stock of Exhibit B from sale and to pay $10,000 damages.
Defendant generally denied the complaint. After trial the Court of First Instance rendered judgment on August 20, 1915, absolving the defendant from the complaint (without special pronouncement as to costs). Plaintiff moved for a new trial on the ground that the judgment was contrary to law and the weight of the evidence; the motion was denied and plaintiff appealed to this Court via a bill of exceptions.
The trial court had concluded, upon a selective comparison of the two dictionaries, that defendant’s work was not an improper copy and characterized dictionaries as a common “pasture ground” from which compilers may lawfully draw. Plaintiff contended on appeal that the trial court misapplied Article 7 (which forbids reproduction without the owner’s consent even to annotate or improve). The Supreme Court undertook a detailed comparison of Exhibits A and B (and defendant’s memorandum enumerating alleged differences), found that defendant had reproduced the bulk of plaintiff’s entries (20,452 of 23,560 Spanish words) and many Tagalog equivalents (including replicated printer’s errors), and concluded that defendant had reproduced plaintiff’s work without consent in violation of Article 7.
The Court found plaintiff’s registration certificate lost but held that the reservation “Es propiedad del autor” together with the Governor-General’s 24 November 1889 permission to print were sufficient proof of the property right under the circumstances. The Court did not award the claimed $10,0...
(Pro-only)
Issues:
- Did the plaintiff establish a protectable literary property right in his *Diccionario Hispano-Tagalog* sufficient to support his action despite the loss of the registration certificate?
- Did the defendant reproduce the plaintiff’s work in violation of Article 7 of the Law of January 10, 1879, on Intellectual Property?
- Was the plaintiff entitled to...(Pro-only)
Ruling:
Ratio:
Doctrine: