Lyceum of The Philippines, Inc., vs. Court of Appeals G.R. No. 101897. March 5, 1993. Facts

LYCEUM OF THE PHILIPPINES, INC., vs.
COURT OF APPEALS
G.R. No. 101897. March 5, 1993.
FACTS
 Petitioner is an educational institution duly registered with the Securities and Exchange
Commission ("SEC"). When it first registered with the SEC on 21 September 1950, it
used the corporate name Lyceum of the Philippines, Inc. and has used that name ever
since.
 Petitioner instituted proceedings before the SEC to compel the private respondents,
which are also educational institutions, to delete the word "Lyceum" from their corporate
names and permanently to enjoin them from using "Lyceum" as part of their respective
names.
 The SEC hearing officer rendered a decision sustaining petitioner’s claim to an exclusive
right to use the word “Lyceum.” On appeal, however, by private respondents to the SEC
En Banc, the decision of the hearing officer was reversed and set aside.
 The SEC did not consider the word “Lyceum” to have become so identified with
petitioner as to render use thereof by other institutions as productive of confusion about
the identity of the schools concerned in the mind of the general public.
 Unlike its hearing officer, the SEC held that the attaching of geographical names to the
word “Lyceum” served sufficiently to distinguish the schools from one another, especially
in view of the fact that the campuses of petitioner and those of the private respondents
were physically quite remote from each other.
 Petitioner then went on appeal to the Court of Appeals however, the Court of Appeals
affirmed the questioned Orders of the SEC .
ISSUE
Whether or not the word Lyceum has acquired a secondary meaning in favor of petitioner
RULING – NO
Corporate Names
The Articles of Incorporation of a corporation must, among other things, set out the name of the
corporation. Section 18 of the Corporation Code establishes a restrictive rule insofar as
corporate names are concerned.
The policy underlying the prohibition in Section 18 against the registration of a corporate name
which is “identical or deceptively or confusingly similar” to that of any existing corporation or
which is “patently deceptive” or “patently confusing” or “contrary to existing laws,” is the
avoidance of fraud upon the public which would have occasion to deal with the entity
concerned, the evasion of legal obligations and duties, and the reduction of difficulties of
administration and supervision over corporations.
In the case at hand, the corporate names of private respondent entities all carry the word
"Lyceum" but confusion and deception are effectively precluded by the appending of geographic
names to the word "Lyceum." Thus, we do not believe that the "Lyceum of Aparri" can be
mistaken by the general public for the Lyceum of the Philippines, or that the "Lyceum of
Camalaniugan" would be confused with the Lyceum of the Philippines.
Doctrine of Secondary Meaning
The doctrine of secondary meaning originated in the field of trademark law. Its application has,
however, been extended to corporate names sine the right to use a corporate name to the
exclusion of others is based upon the same principle which underlies the right to use a particular
trademark or tradename.
Under such doctrine, a word or phrase originally incapable of exclusive appropriation with
reference to an article in the market, because geographical or otherwise descriptive might
nevertheless have been used so long and so exclusively by one producer with reference to this
article that, in that trade and to that group of the purchasing public, the word or phrase has
come to mean that the article was his produce
In the case at hand, while the appellant may have proved that it had been using the word
'Lyceum' for a long period of time, this fact alone did not amount to mean that the said word had
acquired secondary meaning in its favor because the appellant failed to prove that it had been
using the same word all by itself to the exclusion of others. Moreover, there was no evidence
presented to prove that confusion will surely arise if the same word were to be used by other
educational institutions.
The number alone of the private respondents in the case at bar suggests strongly that
petitioner's use of the word "Lyceum" has not been attended with the exclusivity essential for
applicability of the doctrine of secondary meaning. Petitioner's use of the word "Lyceum" was
not exclusive but was in truth shared with the Western Pangasinan Lyceum and a little later with
other private respondent institutions which registered with the SEC using "Lyceum" as part of
their corporation names.
Evaluation
Petitioner institution is not entitled to a legally enforceable exclusive right to use the word
"Lyceum" in its corporate name and that other institutions may use "Lyceum" as part of their
corporate names. To determine whether a given corporate name is "identical" or "confusingly or
deceptively similar" with another entity's corporate name, it is not enough to ascertain the
presence of "Lyceum" or "Liceo" in both names.
One must evaluate corporate names in their entirety and when the name of petitioner is
juxtaposed with the names of private respondents, they are not reasonably regarded as
"identical" or "confusingly or deceptively similar" with each other.

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