Universal Textile Mills Corp., vs.

Textile Mills
G.R. No. L-28351 July 28, 1977

FACTS:
This is an appeal from the order of the Securities and Exchange Commission granting a petition
by the respondent to have the petitioners corporate name be changed as it is confusingly and
deceptively similar to that of the former.

On January 8, 1954, respondent Universal Textile Mills was issued a certificate of Corporation as
a textile manufacturing firm. On the other hand, petitioner, which deals in the production of
hosieries and apparels, acquired its current name by amending its articles of incorporation,
changing its name from Universal Hosiery mills Corporation to Universal Mills Corporation.

ISSUE:
Whether or not petitioners trade name is confusingly similar with that of respondents.

HELD:
Yes. The corporate names in question are not identical, but they are indisputably so similar that
even under the test of reasonable care and observation as the public generally are capable of
using and may be expected to exercise invoked by appellant. We are apprehensive confusion
will usually arise, considering that x x x appellant included among its primary purposes the
manufacturing, dyeing, finishing and selling of fabrics of all kinds which respondent had been
engaged for more than a decade ahead of petitioner.