10% growth in IP filings targeted

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) is targeting a 10-percent increase in intellectual property (IP) filings in 2023, expressing confidence that its partners in the academe and other institutions will help drive more registrations this year.

IPOPHL director general Rowel Barba told reporters last week that they were currently working with more than 80 Innovation and Technology Support Offices (ITSOs)—partner universities and institutions equipped with in-house patent libraries. These are seen to help increase IP filings this year.

“We are banking on them to increase the filings, to increase their production of patents, trademarks, [utility models] and [industrial designs],” Barba said.

He added that they have also revived their flagship program, dubbed as ITSO 2.0, to capacitate members to conduct patent information search, patent drafting, IP application, IP commercialization and IP awareness activities.

“Going around the Philippines, we see that there are still many universities, which are not members of ITSO 2.0,” he said, citing that higher learning institutions were required to have a certain volume of IP filings to retain their membership.

Barba said the ITSO 2.0 program was also expected to drive up IP awareness, through the information drive conducted by their partner universities.

In 2022, the number of IP applications in the Philippines grew 3.7 percent, registering a record-high volume of more than 48,000 filings as numbers exceeded prepandemic levels.

The IP rights body said that applications lodged at its office totaled 48,259 last year, higher than the 46,558 filings in 2021.

It added that the volume of applications has already exceeded the 47,328 applications in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The strong uptake in 2022 IP filings shows how aggressive businesses are in seizing opportunities in the more upbeat economy and the digitalization of business interactions as intensified by the pandemic,” IPOPHL director general Rowel Barba had said in an earlier statement.

Trademark applications led the growth in 2022, totaling 41,235 and accounting for 85 percent of the volume. It was followed by application for patents, with a share of 9 percent, with 4,403 applications filed.

Meanwhile, filing for utility models numbered 1,386 while registrations for industrial designs stood at 1,235. INQ