Intellectual property registrations down 5.5% in H1

MANILA  -The volume of intellectual property (IP) applications in the Philippines dropped by a little more than 5 percent during the first half of the year as the number of trademark registrations declined in tandem with the economic slowdown during the period.

Data from the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) released on Thursday said that IP filings—which include registrations for patents, utility models (UM), industrial designs (ID) and trademarks—fell to 22,203 from the 23,494 recorded during the comparable period in 2022.

IPOPHL said that patent registrations increased by 9 percent to 2,134, from 1,958, with applications from nonresident accounting for 90 percent of the total.

Most of these are in pharmaceutics, comprising 24.47 percent of the total, while 10.58 percent are in organic fine chemistry, and 7.89 percent in digital communications.

Filings for UMs—which provide patent-like protection for a shorter duration and with a less rigorous application process—rebounded from low turnouts during the pandemic and increased 27.7 percent to 835 from 654.

In contrast with patents, UM registrations during the period were mostly from resident filers who filed 802 applications or 96 percent of the total.

Submissions for IDs—which protect the unique appearance of a product—increased by 17.6 percent to 635 applications from 540.

Resident filers comprised 53.1 percent of ID registrations, equivalent to 337 submissions.

Trademark filings recorded the highest decline, slipping by 8 percent to 18,599 from 20,342 applications seen in the comparable period last year.

Copyrights

Meanwhile, copyright registrations totaled 2,833 during the same six-month period, rising by 64.5 percent from the 1,722 recorded during the first half of 2022.

Copyright registrations during the period were mainly for books, pamphlets, articles, e-books, audio books, comics, novels and other writings, accounting for 60.4 percent of the submissions.

These were followed by registrations for computer programs, software, games and apps at 10.6 percent, while those for musical compositions comprised 8.8 percent.

Despite the decline, IPOPHL Director General Rowel Barba expressed optimism given the increase in the three, innovation-focused types of IP, as well as the prospect of a rebound for the remainder of the year for trademark registrations.

“Patent activities could be positioned to reach a new record-high while UM and ID applications move toward an impressive rebound. From this, we could sense that 2023 is skewing towards a year of innovation,” Barba said in a statement.

“Historically, trademark filing activities have been more active in the second semester so we continue to monitor the trend to see if a reversal is still possible,” he also said.