Asia
Brewery vs. CA
GR
103543, 5 July 1993
FACTS:
San
Miguel Corporation (SMC) filed a complaint against Asia Brewery Inc. (ABI) for
infringement of trademark and unfair competition on account of the latter's
BEER PALE PILSEN or BEER NA BEER product which has been competing with SMC's
SAN MIGUEL PALE PILSEN for a share of the local beer market.
RULING:
The Court ruled that petitioner ABI was
guilty of neither infringement nor unfair comepetition. The Court reasoned that
neither the sound, spelling or appearance of Beer Pale Pilsen be said to be
confusingly similar to San Miguel Pale Pilsen. The dominant feature of SMC’s
trademark is “San Miguel Pale Pilsen” while ABI’s is “Beer Pale Pilsen”. The
word “Beer” does not appear in SMC’s product, nor the words “San Miguel” appear
in ABI’s product. The difference outweigh the similarity, which the court
believed could not possibly create confusion in consumers. The words “Beer”,
“pale” and “pilsen” are generic and/or descriptive words, which could not be
exclusively attributable to one company(Sec4(e), IPR).
The
Court also ruled that ABI did not sell its products, passing them off as though
they were from respondent company. There was no showing that ABI’s Beer Pale
Pilsen was sold so as to deceive its consumers as to its origin. Therefore, ABI
could not be guilty of unfair competition.
