IPO cancels TAPE's 'Eat Bulaga' trademark, favors TVJ

MANILA, Philippines (Updated 3:43 pm) — The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines has canceled the trademark registration of “Eat Bulaga” by Television and Production Exponents Inc. (TAPE), ruling that it was Tito Sotto, Vic Sotto, and Joey De Leon who came up with the name.

In a decision released Tuesday, the IPO ruled that the petitioners — or the camp of TVJ — have the "absolute and exclusive right to register" the “Eat Bulaga” or “EB” trademark after it found that they presented sufficient evidence that they originally coined the term.

Josephine Alon of the Bureau of Legal Affairs penned in her decision that TAPE failed to sufficiently explain its claim of ownership of the “Eat Bulaga” name. 

The decision also said that TAPE did not "refuse nor contradict" the explanation of the petitioners on how they came up with the "Eat Bulaga" name and had also helped "corroborate" their story. 

Alon wrote in her decision:

"In fact, Respondent-Registrant even corroborated Petitioners' explanation by averring 'After their engageemnt, we thought of the name for the noontime show, I submitted several names to Romy including "Eat Bulaga" which was suggested by Joey. Romy chose the name "Eat Bulaga" amongst the name in the list."

"Romy" refers to Romeo Jalosjos Sr., the owner of TAPE, Inc.

"Having sufficiently established how Petitioners coined the "Eat Bulaga" mark, it is Petitioners and not Respondent-Registrant who owns the mark," the IPO decision read.

TVJ on June 2 filed a petition to cancel TAPE's trademark of "Eat Bulaga" on the grounds that their former company obtained this "fraudulently."

On May 31, the noontime show trio TVJ left TAPE Inc., which produced “Eat Bulaga” for GMA-7 on a blocktime agreement.

The TVJ camp then moved to TV5 and hosted a show by the name of “E.A.T.” 

This is a developing story. Refresh this page for updates.