Case Digest: Ong Ai Gui vs. the Director of Patent Office, E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company

G.R. No. L-6235             March 28, 1955

ONG AI GUI alias TAN AI GUI, applicant-petitioner, 

vs.the Director of the Philippines Patent Office, respondent. 

E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND COMPANY, intervenor.

FACTS:

Applicant-petitionerTan Ai gui filed an application with the Director of Patents for the registration of the following tradename: "20th Century Nylon Shirts Factory, which the latter denied.

RULING: 

The Court upheld the Director of Patents reasoning that a word or a combination of words, in this case “nylon” and “shirt factory”, which is merely descriptive of an article of trade, or of its composition, characteristics, or qualities, cannot be appropriated and protected as a trademark to the exclusion of its use by others. 

Furthermore, the use of the term "nylon" in the tradename is both "descriptive" and "deceptively and misdescriptive" of the applicant-appellant's business, for apparently he does not use nylon in the manufacture of the articles he produces and sells. Not to mention, the word “nylon” is a general term which is not distinctive and, thus, cannot be afforded secondary meaning attributable petitioner’s business so as to permit registration.

Applicant petitioner was not entitled to the exclusive use of the terms

Categories: case digest, Case Digest: Ong Ai Gui vs. the Director of Patent Office, E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company, G.R. No. L-6235, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, SPECIAL LAW