RP's trademark, patent database to go online

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine government will digitize its database for registered patents, allowing the public, especially prospective inventors, to access two million pages of trademark information through the internet. In a statement, the government’s Intellectual Property Office (IP Philippines) said that it will allot some P7.28 million for the project, which will cover patent and trademark documents registered with the agency from 1931 to 2007. Upon completion, the digital database is expected to provide an efficient system of storage, access, and retrieval of documents on granted patents for inventions, innovation patent or utility models, and design patent or industrial designs from 1948 to November 2007. Withdrawn and published patents for the same period will also be included in the database, the agency said, adding that registered trademarks from 1931 to 2007 will also be covered by the initiative. The digital documents will be uploaded to the Philippine Patent Online Search System (PhilPAT) and Trademark (TM) Search under the e-services segment in the IP Philippines website. Currently, PhilPAT contains bibliographic data of granted inventive patents, innovation patents and design patents from 1948 to the present, and published patent applications from 1998 to the present. The bibliographic data includes, among others, the abstract, and representative drawings of the invention, filing date, the name of the inventors, applicant or assignee, and the current standing of the patent. “Technological information from patents will be available to inventors, scientists and researchers so they can innovate upon existing technology," Adrian Cristobal, Jr., IP Philippines director general, said, adding that the initiative will have four phases. Patents give its holders the exclusive right to manufacture, sell and commercialize a product, process, or an improvement of a product or process over a specific period. In return for this exclusive right, the patent owner discloses all information on his invention in the patent application for the public to access. IP Philippines also said that the initiative will be partly financed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as part of the IP Philippines-WIPO bilateral cooperation program for 2008 to 2010. The agency failed to indicate the amount that WIPO, an affiliate of the United Nations, would contribute to the project’s budget. Besides the digitization project, the IP Philippines-WIPO Development Plan covers activities in seven other areas: the Philippine IP Policy Strategy (PIPPS); Technology Transfer and Commercialization; IP and Development; IP Research and Training Institute (IPRTI); Institutional and Capacity-Building; IP and Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and; Creative Industries. - GMANews.TV