G.R. No. L-11937; April 1, 1918
PEDRO SERRANO LAKTAW, plaintiff-appellant, vs. MAMERTO PAGLINAWAN, defendant-appellee.

FACTS:
Pedro Serrano Laktaw, the registered author and owner of the literary work “Diccionario Hispano-Tagalog” (published in 1889), filed a complaint against Mamerto Paglinawan. Laktaw alleged that Paglinawan, without his consent, reproduced and copied a substantial part of his dictionary in Paglinawan’s own work titled “Diccionariong Kastila-Tagalog” (published in 1913), thereby violating Article 7 of the Law of January 10, 1879, on Intellectual Property. Laktaw sought damages amounting to $10,000 and an order for Paglinawan to withdraw all copies of his dictionary from sale. The Court of First Instance of Manila absolved Paglinawan, ruling that a comparison of the two dictionaries did not show that Paglinawan’s work was an improper copy. Laktaw appealed.

ISSUE:
Whether the defendant’s reproduction of the plaintiff’s dictionary without consent constitutes a violation of intellectual property rights under the applicable law.

RULING:
The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s decision. Upon a meticulous comparison of the two dictionaries, the Court found that Paglinawan had copied 20,452 out of 23,560 Spanish words from Laktaw’s dictionary, along with their Tagalog equivalents, definitions, and even printer’s errors. This constituted a clear reproduction under Article 7 of the Law of January 10, 1879, which prohibits reproducing another’s work without consent, even if only to annotate, add, or improve it. The Court rejected the trial court’s view that dictionaries are “common property” like a pasture ground, emphasizing that an author’s exclusive right to reproduce their work is essential to the economic value of intellectual property. However, the Court declined to award damages due to insufficient evidence on the exact amount. The Court ordered Paglinawan to withdraw all copies of his dictionary from sale and to pay the costs of the first instance.