IPOPHL hired as service provider to Brunei counterpart

MANILA,  Philippines  —The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has been selected by its counterpart in Brunei to provide search and examination services for patent applications, taking the collaborative efforts between the two countries to the next level when it comes to intellectual property.

The IPOPHL said on Monday said that the outsourcing arrangement followed the signing of a memorandum of understanding back in 2023 between its director general, Rowel Barba, and Brunei Darussalam IP Office (BruIPO) registrar Dato Seri Paduka Awang Haji Ahmad Bin Pehin Orang Kaya Laila Setia Bakti Di-Raja Dato Laila Utama Haji Awang Isa.

“This is the first time another IP office has outsourced [to] IPOPHL for a core service. This shows increased confidence in the efficiency of our processes and our tested and proven expertise in emerging technologies after over 76 years of conducting patent search and examination,” Barba said in a statement.

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Under the agreement, the IPOPHL will accept reexamination, provide opinions in response to an opposition over an amendment to a patent and extend capacity-building activities to help BruIPO adopt international best practices in patent search and examination.

Registration applications

The IPOPHL also committed to processing a maximum of 200 applications a year from BruIPO in the next five years.

In the Philippines, the volume of IP fillings is expected to increase by as much as 10 percent this year, on the back of the country’s continued economic recovery.

In a previous interview, Barba said that IP filings — including registrations for patents, utility models, industrial designs, and trademarks — grew by 1.9 percent during the first three quarters of 2023.

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Applications lodged at the IPOPHL had reached 41,815 from January to September last year, with registrations for utility models, which provide patent-like protection at a shorter duration and with a less rigorous application process, growing by 37.2 percent to 1,538 from a year ago.

Meanwhile, filings for industrial designs, which protect the unique appearance of a product, increased by 9.8 percent to 1,127, while patent applications saw a slight increase of 3.7 percent to 3,612 from the comparable period in 2022.

Trademark filings recorded the highest growth during the period, jumping by 41 percent to 35,538. Lastly, copyright registrations soared by 114 percent to 6,022 during the same period.