MANILA, Philippines--THE INTELLECTUAL Property Office has called for the development and protection of copyright-based industries, saying these accounted for 4.8 percent of the country's output and gave jobs to some 300,000 people.

Adrian S. Cristobal Jr., IP Philippines director general, said copyright-based enterprises and other creative industries were among eight sectors representing the country's IP assets.

"Apart from having a great potential to spur economic development, the copyright sector enriches our culture," Cristobal added.

The lawyer explained that copyright, a form of intellectual property, pertains to a set of rights of creators or authors for their literary and artistic works.

Such works include writings; music; fine art such as photography, paintings, sculptures; and technology-based works like computer programs, websites and electronic databases.

In an interview last July, Cristobal said the National Statistics Office was preparing for the use of data on IP as one of the indicators of economic growth.

He said the NSO's move was a result of IP Philippine's efforts to "mainstream" the treatment of IP as an indispensable factor in business as well as academic creative processes.

The officials said the use of IP data to observe the growth of an economy was a relatively new trend even in more advanced countries.