UP lawyer highlights scientists’ need to protect inventions
IN the 1990s, Dr. Neila Cortes-Maramba of the University of the Philippines Manila (UP Manila) led a team of scientists, investigating 10 medicinal plants in the Philippines.
Two of these plants exhibited promising results: one for cough and the other for urinary tract infection (UTI).
The team patented Vitex negundo (Lagundi) and Blumea balsamifera (Sambong) in syrup and tablet forms, granting them exclusive rights to these medicines.
Lagundi and Sambong became essential remedies for cough and UTI, proving lucrative for the pharmaceutical industry.
Had they not applied for a patent, UP Manila and its partners would not have earned more than P50 million in remittances through royalties and licensing fees; nor would they have been able to claim the inventions as their own and as these would have been vulnerable to idea theft.
If either of the inventions were not patented, “It belongs now to the public domain where anyone can reproduce or manufacture it,” Atty. Josephine Santiago of the UP Diliman College of Law said at the seventh session of the iStories webinar, hosted by UP Diliman
College of Science.
Patents not only benefited inventors, but also stimulated innovation and improved existing products.
Applying for patents required detailed explanations on how the invention worked.
This information would become publicly available upon patent approval, allowing other inventors to draw inspiration from or enhance the patented work.
Santiago also touched upon the other three types of intellectual property cases: a trademark, which protected identifying symbols and expressions; a copyright, which granted rights from the moment of creation; and a trade secret, which safeguarded valuable and confidential information.