MAKING A DIFFERENCE THROUGH THE ITSO
USC takes pride in being the first ITSO to file the first two patents under the Patent Protection Incentive Package( PPIP) or the Juan’ s Thousand Patents of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines during the ITSO launching on March 22, 2012. USC was also the first to file a Patent Cooperation Treaty( PCT) application over the technology that BioPERC has developed. This is a historic first among the ITSOs and much of this success is owed to the assistance rendered by the ITSO unit to the researchers / inventors of the technology that is now the core of GEMS’ business. Following the franchise agreement of IPOPHL, USC committed not just a dedicated office and computers with internet connections, but also personnel dedicated to perform the tasks of patent searching, patent drafting and assisting in patent application which are skills developed over three years of training conducted by IPOPHL and its partners. The ITSO office of University of San Carlos operates as a service unit of the university catering to internal clients who come mainly from the Engineering and Science departments. While the focus is on patents, the ITSO office is the institutional IP Office of the University that engages in IP education, giving lectures and seminars to increase awareness on IP among the university’ s stakeholders( faculty, students, and admin staff). From the three years of experience operating as a patent library, a fully operational ITSO is crucial to the university that positions itself as an“ autonomous university” under the CHED’ s typology by 2018.
WIPO, IPOPHL, ITSO and the Philippines’ Technology Transfer Act
Photo © USC-ITSO
The capacity to exercise protection of intellectual property assets in the university needs to be cultivated. With skills developed through the intervention of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, this exercise will be the most important legacy of IPOPHL to the academe in technology commercialization. Supported in large part by the World Intellectual Property Organization( WIPO) and the IP offices in the US( USPTO) and Europe( EPO) who has been tapped by IPOPHL for the experts in patenting, technology transfer, and technology commercialization, the continuous capability training and the distance learning courses made available by WIPO, has started to develop a critical mass of patent searchers and patent drafters based in the academe- a number of whom have passed the Patent Agents Qualifying Examination( PAQE) given by the EPO. With more and more universities joining the ITSO bandwagon( presently there are around 70), the winds of change is taking place in the academic institutions in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. If the support of the government is sustained, in due time, the patent libraries will definitely help change the patent landscape of the Philippines which has been lagging behind that of its ASEAN neighbors. The Technology Transfer Act of 2009( R. A. 10055) is facilitating this change to happen for it empowers the universities to own their IPs that have the potential for commercialization. More support from the government by making more research funds available to universities( private and SUCs) will make R & D units of these universities busy with generating more technologies. Indeed, USC has taken advantage of these fund facilities made available by the government( DOST, CHED) which helped generate the technology mentioned above and spun it into a start-up company. •
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