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Author: Pericles Casuela

The Title Says it All – “An Aerodynamic Fan Blade”

In Asahi Electrical Manufacturing Corp. vs. Reginald Joseph O. Chua, the Bureau of Legal Affairs (BLA) cancelled Chua’s certificate of industrial design. Among the grounds cited by the Bureau of Legal Affairs (BLA) in cancelling the registration was the fact that the design was dictated by technical or functional considerations. Section 113.2 of the Intellectual Property Code provides that industrial designs dictated by technical or functional considerations to obtain a technical result shall not be protected. Although not mentioned by the BLA in its decision, the title itself of the registration betrays it – An AERODYNAMIC Fan Blade. Chua shot himself in the foot when he called the fan blade AERODYNAMIC.

New Trademark Forms

The Philippine Trademark Office has issued new forms for trademark applications, declarations of use, renewals, etc. The old forms will only be accepted until December 2016. 

FOINALLY!

After years of languishing in Congress without any progress, President Rodrigo Duterte breathes life to Freedom of Information (FOI) by issuing Executive Order No. 2, which mandates disclosure of information of all offices under the executive branch. 

Subtitles To Be Required

Television broadcasters and producers of television programs will soon be required to broadcast their programs with subtitles for the benefit of the hearing-impaired viewers as required by The Closed Caption Law. The implementing rules and regulations are to be issued within 120 days from the effectivity of the new law. Content producers should monitor the issuance of the implementing rules and regulations, and how this may affect them.  

To Chow Is To Eat

The Bureau of Legal Affairs of the Intellectual Property Office, in its Decision No. 2016-109, explained that although the word “CHOW” was originally considered as descriptive, the doctrine of secondary meaning applies as evidence shows that the CHOW mark has been used by and closely associated with Nestle for animal food in the Philippines. Hence, if some other party will appropriate the word “CHOW” for its marks covering animal food products, it is highly likely that consumers will be misled to believe that the goods came from the same source. 
 
As explained by The Supreme Court in the earlier case of Philippine Nut Industry, Inc. vs. Standard Brands Incorporated (G.R. No. L-23035), this doctrine is to the effect that a word or phrase originally incapable of exclusive appropriation with reference to an article on the market; might nevertheless have been used so long and so exclusively by one producer with reference to his article that in that trade and to that branch of the purchasing public, the word or phrase has come to mean that the article was his product.  This doctrine is found in Sec. 4 (f), Chapter II-A of the Trade-Mark Law and subsequently adopted in Section 123.2 of the IP Code of the Philippines. 

Implementing Regulations of the Competition Act

The Philippine Competition Commission issued recently issued the rules and regulations to implement Republic Act No. 10667, or the Philippine Competition Act. The regulations came into force on June 18, 2016 after being published on JUne 3, 2018. A copy of the regulations may be downloaded here.

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