Commercialization of academe IP filings up 50%

Commercialization of intellectual property (IP) filings of Innovation and Technology Support Offices (ITSOS), composed of higher education institutions (HEIS), state universities and colleges (SUCS) and other institutions, went up by 50 percent in 2023, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines reported.

IPOPHL Director General Rowel S. Barba said that under the ITSO 2.0 Program partners continued to push their technologies to break new grounds. “IP commercialization continued to move at full throttle last year as more ITSOS were driven to make an impact in society through their IPS,” said Barba.

Data show that 39 ITSOS engaged in activities toward commercialization, up by 50 percent from 26 ITSOS in 2022. This led to 74 reported commercialization activities last year, an increase of 51 percent from the previous year.

To further boost commercialization, IPOPHL’S Documentation, Information, Technology Transfer Bureau (DITTB) recently incorporated the Inventor Assistance Program to its ITSO Program.

Aggregate IP filings of Innovation and Technology Support Offices (ITSOS) — higher education institutions (HEIS), state universities and colleges (SUCS) and other institutions part of the innovation program — hit an all-time high of 1,535 in 2023, rising by 47.6 percent annually and eclipsing the 1,040 record in 2022.

Innovation-related IPS, namely patents, utility models (UM) and industrial designs (ID), took up almost 90 percent of all filings received in all 87 ITSOS last year, while the rest were trademarks.

Patents filed last year totaled 427, 77 percent higher than in 241 in 2022. UM saw a 28 percent increase to 736 from 574. ID jumped by 57 percent to 200 from 127. Trademarks grew by 76 percent to 172 from 98. Meanwhile copyright deposits saw a 119.8 percent growth to 521 from 237.

Barba attributed the growth to, aside from the agency’s capacity building, the increase in the number of ITSO members — from 77 in 2022 to 87 today.

“ITSO member-institutions serve as frontliners to our IP stakeholders in universities and colleges, committed to accelerating the use of the IP system in their communities. The record-high filings are proof of the outcomes of the ITSO 2.0 Program in helping build our innovation capabilities to power our nation’s socioeconomic growth and development,” Barba said.

The ITSO is IPOPHL’S flagship program to capacitate members to conduct patent information search, patent drafting, IP application, IP commercialization and IP awareness activities. In 2019, the program was redesigned to create the ITSO 2.0, which sets varying cluster deliverables to provide members with more tailored support based on their levels of innovation and IP capacities.

To further boost filings, the DITTB further revised the ITSO Clustering to increase the quality of patent applications, encourage more patent grants and encourage more commercialization, securing patent protection abroad and involvement of ITSOS as pro-bono volunteers in the Wipo-inventors Assistance Program in order to help more financially challenged inventors secure patent protection.