IP rights body alarmed by PH slide on innovation index

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) expressed alarm over the Philippines’ steep decline on the World Intellectual Property Organization global innovation Index, vowing to step up efforts to stimulate innovation activities in the country through intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement.

In a statement over the weekend, the IP rights body described the Philippines’ decline on the 2022 Global Innovation Index—from the 51st spot in 2021 to the 59th place this year among 132 other economies around the globe—as “most alarming”.

“This calls for the urgent task of accelerating work at the National Innovation Council to sustain innovation over time,” the IPOPHL said.

Based on the IPOPHL’s analysis, the drop could be attributed to the double-digit declines in the education and tertiary education subindicators under the human capital and research, knowledge creation category.

It likewise noted the declines in the knowledge impact sub-indicator, which falls under the knowledge and technology outputs, as well as the creative goods and services sub-indicator, which is under the creative outputs category.

The IP rights body said that for sub-indicators related to IP, the top laggards include industrial designs (-10), cultural and creative services exports (-9), utility models (-7), patent families (-7), university-industry research and development collaboration (-3) and trademarks (-3).

“We would like to note that the decline in industrial designs, utility models and trademarks may be due to the fact that the report based its data on 2020 when IPOPHL saw a decline in application across all types of IP due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said the IPOPHL.

The IP rights body said in total, this drop in the applications during the height of the pandemic represents the biggest decline in filing activities throughout its 25 years in office.

“We will definitely intensify our work in creating an environment that stimulates creative and innovative activities through promoting IP protection and creating a robust enforcement regime,” the IPOPHL said.

Last month, the IPOPHL said applications for IP registration increased during the first half of the year as health curbs caused by the coronavirus pandemic eased further.

It said that filings for patents, trademarks, utility models and industrial designs from January to June totaled 25,432, increasing by 1.5percent from the 25,069 filings in the comparable period of 2021.

The IP rights body said this exceeds by nearly 2 percent the 24,987 registered in the first half of 2019, which, in turn, surpasses pre-pandemic level benchmarks.