LYCEUM OF THE PHILIPPINES vs.

COURT OF APPEALS (and other Lyceum Schools)

GR No. 101897 / March 5, 1993 / J. Feliciano / dlpsanty
Petition for review of the decision of the CA

Facts:
Petitioner had sometime before commenced in the SEC a proceeding against Lyceum of Baguio
to require it to change its corporate name and adopt another name not similar to or identical with
that of petitioner.
SEC Commissioner Sulit held that corporate name of petitioner and Lyceum of Baguio were
substantially identical and that petitioner had registered its name ahead of L. of Baguio.
Petitioner then wrote all the educational institutions it could find using the word Lyceum as part
of their corporate name, and advised them to discontinue such use of Lyceum.
Petitioner instituted before the SEC a case to enforce its propriety right to the word Lyceum.
SEC Officer sustained petitioners claim to an exclusive right to use the word Lyceum.
SEC En Banc reversed said decision. It ruled that the attaching of geographical names to the
word Lyceum served sufficiently to distinguish the schools from one another and the schools are
physically quite remote from each other.
CA affirmed SEC En Banc.

Issue:

Whether or not Lyceum can be appropriated by the petitioners to the exclusion of others No.

SC Ruling:
Confusion and deception are effectively precluded by the appending of geographic names to
the word Lyceum.
Lyceum is a Latin word for the Greek lykeion which referred to a locality on the river Illissius
in Ancient Athens.
Lyceum is in fact as generic in character as the word university.
The Doctrine of Secondary Meaning [Test: WON the use of the name has been for such
length of time and with exclusivity as to have become associated or identified with the petitioner
in the mind of the general public?]. Petitioner failed to prove that it had been using the same
word all by itself to the exclusion of others. One of the respondents (Western Pangasinan
Lyceum) used the term Lyceum 17 years before the petitioner registered its own corporate
name.
Petitioners use of the word Lyceum was neither the first use of that term in the Philippines
nor an exclusive use thereof.