A MANILA City Regional Trial Court has ordered a Chinese firm and its three local partners to pay a Filipino publisher more than P24.7 million in damages after being found guilty of copyright infringement.
In a 35-page decision on Dec. 8, Judge Maria Victoria Soriano-Villadolid of Branch 24 granted the copyright infringement complaint and damage suit filed by St. Mary’s Publishing Corp. and owner Jerry Vicente Catabijan against M.Y. Intercontinental Trading Corp., its owner Tedwin Uy, Allianz Marketing and Publishing Corp. and China-based firm Fujian New Technology Color Making and Printing Co.
The court required MITC, Uy, Allianz and Fujian to pay the complainant P24,695,830, including P18.06 million in actual damages, P1 million in moral damages, P2 million in exemplary damages, P500,000 in attorney’s fees and P3,135,000 million in costs of suit.
The judge also ordered the defendants to desist from printing, copying, reproducing, importing, distributing and selling 12 original and revised editions of textbooks that they had earlier illegally sold to the Department of Education-Zamboanga, Municipality of Matnog in Sorsogon, and Municipality in Cabuyao in Laguna without the approval of SMPC, the copyright owner of the books.
SMPC’s lawyer, intellectual property rights expert Oscar Manahan, said the landmark case provided a model for copyright owners pursuing suits against violators.
“This decision recognizes the Philippine government’s commitment to the Berne Convention to fully recognize, protect and enforce IPRs in the country,” Manahan said.
“The Berne Convention on Copyrights where the Philippines and China are signatories have committed to fully recognize and to enforce the Philippine decision under the reciprocity provisions in the treaty.”
Manahan said that while Fujian was a foreign firm based in China, its act constituted copyright infringement pursuant to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works on 1 August 1951, to which China became a signatory in 1992.
The case stemmed from the printing contract forged between SMPC and the defendants for the printing of SMPC textbooks in Fujian’s factory in China. SMPC issued the Authority to Print Textbooks three times to Fujian in September, October and November 2009.
SMPC also issued a Purchase Order in December 2009 to Fujian for the printing of additional textbooks (Development Reading Power for Grade 1 to 6 and Pagpapaunlad Ng Kasanayan Sa Pagbasa) for P11,347,781.08 covering a total of 301,000 copies worth P300 each.
But Fujian did not deliver the textbooks to SMPC and instead issued to MITC the Authority to Enter into a Contract to Market and to Sell the textbooks.
Allianz imported the textbooks from Fujian, China, and sold them in the Philippines.
The court said MITC was able to secure copyrights of the subject textbooks through a notarized Deed of Assignment of Copyright in March 2010, which was found to be a forged document.
Citing a report from the Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory presented by the complainant, the RTC held that the signature of Catabijan in the deed was forged.
In light of the totality of evidence at hand, the Court finds that plaintiffs were able to preponderate their claim of forgery against the Deed of Assignment of Copyright dated 12 March 2010. In view of its invalidity, the Certificates of Copyright Registration dated 18 January 2012 relied upon by defendants Uy, et. al. to prove defendant MITC’s copyrights are therefore void,” the lower court said.
Accordingly, at the time defendant Fujian authorized defendant MITC to enter into a contract to market and sell the textbooks covered under P.O. dated 7 December 2010 and at the time defendant Allianz sold and/or offered for sale the Subject Textbooks, the copyrights of said books, as well as all the other books mentioned above for which plaintiff SMPC was issued copyright registration certificates, belong to plaintiff SMPC.