Title
Laktaw vs. Paglinawan
Case
G.R. No. 11937
Decision Date
Apr 1, 1918
Plaintiff's Spanish-Tagalog dictionary was copied by defendant, violating intellectual property law; Supreme Court ruled for plaintiff, ordering withdrawal of infringing work but denying damages.
reproduction
permission
court ruling

Case Summary (G.R. No. 11937)

Factual Background

The plaintiff alleged that he was, under the laws on intellectual property, the registered owner and author of Diccionario Hispano-Tagalog, and that a copy was attached as Exhibit A. He further alleged that the defendant, without his consent, reproduced his literary work by improperly copying the greater part of it in the defendant’s own dictionary, Diccionariong Kastila-Tagalog, attached as Exhibit B. The plaintiff claimed that such reproduction violated article 7 of the Law of January 10, 1879 on Intellectual Property, and that it caused irreparable injuries. He also asserted that the damages amounted to $10,000, and prayed for an order requiring the defendant to withdraw from sale all stock of the work represented by Exhibit B, plus payment of $10,000.

The defendant denied the material allegations generally and prayed for absolution.

Trial Court Proceedings

After trial and presentation of evidence by both sides, the Court of First Instance rendered judgment on August 20, 1915, absolving the defendant. It did not make any special pronouncement regarding costs. The plaintiff moved for a new trial on the ground that the judgment was against the law and the weight of the evidence. The motion was denied, and the plaintiff excepted to the denial. He appealed to the Supreme Court on a bill of exceptions.

The Parties’ Contentions on Appeal

The trial court’s rationale, as described in the appealed record, was that a comparison of the plaintiff’s dictionary and the defendant’s dictionary did not show that the defendant’s work was an improper copy of the plaintiff’s. Proceeding from that conclusion, the trial court held that the plaintiff had no right of action and that the requested remedy could not be granted.

On appeal, the plaintiff contended that the trial court erred in failing to declare that the defendant reproduced the plaintiff’s work and violated article 7 of the Law of January 10, 1879. The plaintiff emphasized that article 7 forbade reproduction of another person’s work without the owner’s consent, even if the reproduction was only to annotate, add to it, or improve an edition.

Legal Issues Framed by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court focused on whether the defendant’s act constituted prohibited reproduction under article 7 of the Law of January 10, 1879 on Intellectual Property. A central legal clarification made by the Court was that violation of article 7 did not require proof that the reproduction amounted to an “improper copy” in the sense used by the trial court. Rather, the Court held that the statutory prohibition applied whenever another person’s work was reproduced without the owner’s consent, including reproduction done to annotate, add something, or improve an edition.

Supreme Court’s Evaluation of the Evidence of Reproduction and Copying

The Court conducted a “careful and minute comparison” between Exhibit A (plaintiff’s dictionary) and Exhibit B (defendant’s dictionary). It took into account the defendant’s memorandum (referred to as fols. 55 to 59) enumerating words and terms the defendant claimed were in his dictionary but not in the plaintiff’s, and also those claimed differences in equivalents or definitions. The Court further considered the plaintiff’s notes, referred to as Exhibit C, first series, in which the plaintiff enumerated in detail the terms copied by the defendant from the plaintiff’s dictionary, letter-by-letter, and with a summary at the foot of each group of letters showing the number of initial Spanish words contained in the defendant’s dictionary, which were claimed as the defendant’s own, and which were said to be truly copied.

From these materials, the Court reached conclusions “completely different and contrary” to the trial court. It held that among the Spanish words in the defendant’s dictionary, those corresponding to each letter of the alphabet were copied and reproduced from the plaintiff’s dictionary, except for those identified as the defendant’s own. The Court described the numerical comparison: the defendant’s dictionary contained 23,560 Spanish words by letter group. After deducting 17 words corresponding to the letters K and X—which, according to the plaintiff, the plaintiff had no words corresponding to—the Court found that only 3,108 words were the defendant’s own. On that basis, the Court concluded that the defendant reproduced or copied 20,452 words.

The Court also held that the defendant literally reproduced not only the Spanish entries but also the Tagalog equivalents, definitions, and meanings given in the plaintiff’s dictionary. It acknowledged that, for some words, the defendant made additions of his own. Nevertheless, the Court treated those additions as insufficient to negate the fact of reproduction. It further noted that printer’s errors in the plaintiff’s dictionary concerning the expression of some words and their Tagalog equivalents were likewise reproduced in the defendant’s dictionary, which the Court considered indicative that the defendant had copied the Spanish words and their meanings and equivalents directly from the plaintiff’s work.

Rejection of the Trial Court’s Random Comparison and Dictionary “Common Property” Reasoning

The Supreme Court criticized the trial court’s method of selecting words “at random” for comparison. It held that such an incomplete comparison rendered the trial court’s conclusion inaccurate and not well founded. It also examined the trial court’s examples in which some words were said not to be copied. The Supreme Court reasoned that this did not disprove reproduction. It explained that a person intending to imitate another’s work may try to make the imitation appear different, and it treated the specific example relating to the preposition “a” (to) in Tagalog as consistent with imitation rather than inconsistency. Thus, where the plaintiff’s example referred to “voy a Bulacan” while the defendant’s referred to “voy a Tayabas,” the Court said the difference did not show the absence of copying; instead, it suggested an attempt to create superficial dissimilarity.

The Court also rejected the trial court’s conception of dictionaries. The trial court had reasoned that dictionaries are necessarily made with the aid of others and improved by the increase of words; thus, it characterized the dictionary as something like a pasture ground available for all who wish to write a new dictionary, implying that the defendant lawfully “took whatever he needed.”

The Supreme Court deemed that view erroneous in light of the Law of January 10, 1879 on Intellectual Property, stating that the law provides protection to an author of a dictionary. It cited the discussion by Danvila y Collado on intellectual property law, as well as a judicial statement from the correctional court of the Seine, recognizing that a dictionary constitutes property and that the protection cannot be denied merely because words are not owned by anyone, so long as the dictionary’s definitions, examples explaining sense, and manner of expressing meanings constitute a special work. The Court stressed that new meanings evidently belong to the person who first published them.

Recognition of the Plaintiff’s Property Right and Continuing Protection

The Supreme Court held that the plaintiff could not be denied legal protection. It grounded protection on the claim that the plaintiff’s dictionary published in 1889 was his property, and that such property right was recognized by article 7, in connection with article 2, of the Law of January 10, 1879. It further reasoned that the plaintiff had a right that could not be deprived by the mere fact that the law was no longer applied in the same manner because of subsequent changes in sovereignty.

As to proof of the right despite the absence of a certificate of registration introduced at trial, the Court observed that the plaintiff did not introduce the certificate of registration because it had been lost during the revolution against Spain. It described the relevant administrative rules as having required registration, but noted that under the circumstances the Court considered it sufficient that the first page of the dictionary reserved the property right using the phrase “Es propiedad del autor” (“All rights reserved”), taken together with a permission granted by the Governor-General on November 24, 1889 after examination by a permanent committee of censors, with the necessary license then being granted. The Court held that the defendant failed to introduce evidence showing that the plaintiff did not comply with article 36, which the Court treated as a prerequisite to enjoying the benefits of the preceding articles, including article 7.

The Court also addressed the possible contention that the Law of January 10, 1879 ceased to operate after the end of Spanish sovereignty and the substitution of the United States. It held that even if the law was no longer operative, the plaintiff’s right could still be invoked. The Court treated the right as vested and protected so that authors who acquired rights during Spanish sovereignty would not lose them after the change of regime. It invoked article 13 of the Treaty of Paris of December 10, 1898, which declared that rights to literary and other properties acquired by the subject of Spain in the Philippines and other ceded territories would continue to be respected. It further relied on article 428 of the Civil Code, which grants the author the right to exploit and dispose of the work at will, and emphasized that exclusive

...continue reading

Analyze Cases Smarter, Faster
Jur helps you analyze cases smarter to comprehend faster, building context before diving into full texts. AI-powered analysis, always verify critical details.

About Privacy Terms