Registered patent agents in the Philippines served as the lecturers and workshop mentors during the threeday event. Mr. Roberto Verzosa, currently the Program Manager of TAPI’ s Testing Assistance Program, reviewed the participants on the basics of intellectual property( IP), patent application requirements and procedures. Mr. Caezar Angelito E. Arceo, who is the country’ s first patent agent to have passed the Patent Agent Qualifying Examinations in both the chemical and the non-chemical fields, lectured the basics of invention spotting and provided several exercises; while Ms. Anna Liza B. Saet gave a review of prior art search with exercises. An invited seasoned patent agent, Mr. Jerry C. Serapion of the Philippine Rice Research Institute based at the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, explained the requirements of patentability. The said tool was initially developed by Mr. Arceo and Mr. Serapion in their early patentingrelated collaborations.
Participants were grouped according to the field of technologies( chemical and mechanical group) of their respective projects for drafting. Some participants worked alone with their actual technologies while some were teamed up in groups composed of 3-4 participants in a technology. A total of 22 technologies were used for actual exercise for prior art analysis, invention spotting and patent drafting, four of which are existing applications for filing from the National Research Council of the Philippines( NRCP), one from the Industrial Technology Development Institute( ITDI) and one from the Forest Products Research and Development Institute( FPRDI). The rest of the technologies came from different RDI’ s [ Food and Nutrition Research Institute( FNRI), FPRDI, ITDI, Philippine Nuclear Research Institute( PNRI), Philippine Textile Research Institute( PTRI), Metals Industry Research and Development Institute( MIRDC)] and SUCs( Cavite State University and Southern Luzon State University) as instant applications for TAPI’ s assistance. The workshops ended with ready-to-file specifications and simple claims of at least 14 new patent applications.
During the workshops, the participants were also encouraged to excel as rewards were offered to the best performers. Though the workshops were taxing and tricky, participants were excited to perform not just for the learnings that they acquired but more so for the prizes awaiting the meritorious performers. For the prior art analysis, recognition and prizes were given to Ms. Rose Mary Buturan, Philippine Science High School( PSHS); Ms. Laarni Piloton, Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and emerging Technology Research and Development( PCIEERD); Mr. Bernard Jude Gutierrez, ITDI and Mr. Garry Bathan, MIRDC. Mr. Bathan also got the Best Preliminary Search Report Award. For the invention spotting workshop, keenness and enthusiasm of Ms. Tatah Mariano, Ms. Liezl Sueno, PCIEERD; Ms. Theresa Marie Chan-See, ITDI; Mr. Cesar Austria, FPRDI and Ms. Laarni Piloton, PCIEERD were rewarded also. Ms. Piloton was commended for submitting the best output.
The participants enjoyed the three-day trainingworkshop as proven by their feedbacks. Ms. Lyn Aggangan of Batangas-PSTD at first thought that the training-workshop would be boring and just a repetition of her previous related trainings, but contrary to her first impression, she enjoyed and learned a lot from it that she will surely apply the use of“ the tools” for the clients and inventors she will meet as a PSTO of Batangas. Furthermore, Mr. Jessie Nicavera of NRCP also testified that this particular training demystified prior art analysis, invention spotting and patent drafting to him.
Engr. Javate, who is also a registered Philippine patent agent, hopes to conduct more training programs of this kind and to share their newly developed tool to universities and other government agencies, particularly those who are members of the ITSO network.“ Anyone interested knows how to contact us,” she quips. •
ITSOMAGazine 14