MANILA, Philippines — Registration of homegrown patents is targeted to account for 25 percent from the current 5 percent share of the total number of registered patents, which is 95 percent dominated by foreign patents.

Atty. Ricardo Blancaflor, director-general of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), said at yesterday’s forum on “Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge” there are lots of patentable Filipino products.

“Ideally, we should have more Filipino patents than foreigners,” Blancaflor said.

According to Blancaflor, there are 5,000 patents registered with IPOPHL but 95 percent is owned by foreign patents and only 5 percent by Filipinos.

“We are targeting 1,000 new patent registration this year from state colleges, which the IPOPHL is registering for free.

The registered patents are into inventions, utility model and industrial designs but the inventions are only a few 200, Blancaflor said.

In addition, Blancaflor said copyright registration is still small at 300 registered with them as most copyrights have been registered with the National Library.

In terms of trademarks, the share of foreign and Filipino trademarks is equally split at 50-50. There are now as much as 8,000 trademarks.

“We would like the Filipino trademarks to account for 75 to 85 percent because there are more trademarks that can be registered with us,” Blancaflor said.

He noted that some enterprises are just up to getting their business names and not pursue registering their trademarks. “Who knows your business becomes huge but you failed to capitalize on your trademark. Look at the worth now of Mang Inasal,” he said. “Mang Inasal,” a restaurant chain is registered with IPOPHL. 

(Source: Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation)