Ching vs. Salinas Case Digest

CASE TITLE: Jessie Ching v. William Salinas, Sr., William Salinas, Jr., Josephine Salinas, Jennifer Salinas, Alonto Solaiman Salle, John Eric Salinas, Noel Yabut (Board of Directors and Officers of WILAWARE PROUDCT CORPORATION) PETITIONER’S CLAIMS: Petitioner’s insisted that his works are covered by Sections 172.1 and 172.2 of the Intellectual Property Code and that the copyright certificates issued by the National Library are prima facie evidence of its validity, citing the ruling of the United States Court of Appeals in one of its cases. He claims that the IPC provides in no uncertain terms that copyright protection automatically attaches to a work by the sole fact of its creation, irrespective of its mode or form of expression, as well as of its content, quality or purpose. As such, the petitioner insists, notwithstanding the classification of the works as either literary and/or artistic, the said law, likewise, encompasses works which may have a bearing on the utility aspect to which the petitioner’s utility designs were classified. Moreover, according to the petitioner, what the Copyright Law protects is the author’s intellectual creation, regardless of whether it is one with utilitarian functions or incorporated in a useful article produced on n industrial scale. The petitioner also maintains that the law does not provide that the intended use or use in industry of an article eligible for patent bars or invalidates its registration under the Law on Copyright. The test of protection for the aesthetic is not beauty and utility, but art for the copyright ad invention of original and ornamental design for design patents. In like manner, the fact that his utility designs or models for articles of manufacture have been expressed in the field of automotive parts, or based on something already in the public domain does not automatically remove them from the protection of the Law on Copyright. RESPONDENT’S CLAIMS: The respondents aver that the work of the petitioner