With the latest numbers on the floor, filing for IP protection has been increased by 20% in the first half of 2021 in the Philippines. This increase demonstrates the recovering economy with easing lockdown restrictions in the Philippines, where the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) was successful in reiterating the IP role in the business recovery.

IP Filing Trends

With the most significant rise noticed in utility model (UM) submission which has seen an increase to 744 from the previous 592, between the first half of the last year, showing the significant rise of approx 26%. The total number of IP applications was 22,919. For this utility model submission, the driving forces were the residents who show an increase of 29% from 555 to 715. Nevertheless, a decrease of 22% was shown in the non-resident UM filing, from 37 to 29. Leading fields of UM submissions were Food chemistry (239 files), basic materials chemistry (39), special machines (32), handling (20), and IT techniques for management.

For the trademark submission, it also shows an increase in the filing from 15,969 to 19,649, an increase of 23%. Out of which residents were the major applicant with an increase of 39% from 8.859 to 12,288. Filing under Madrid Protocol fell by 5% from 3,859 to 3,677. Sectors that received most of the trademark were Pharmaceuticals, health, and cosmetics which accounted for 5,786. The agricultural products and services accounted for 5,473, scientific research, information, and communication technology were 4,204, and management communications.

The patent side shows a small increase of 2% from 1,899 to 1,945 where contrary to what we have seen above, non-resident accounted for the major increase of 23%.  A slight decrease of 1% has been seen in the international filing under Patent Cooperation Treaty from 1,599 to 1,586. Popular sectors for the patent filing were Pharmaceuticals (1,020), organic fine chemistry (523), biotechnology (312), basic materials chemistry (198), and food chemistry.

Copyright deposits show a tremendous increase of 163% from 285 to 761. The news for Industrial design was not good which shows a fall of around 10%. The resident does show up an increase in the filing by 8%, but the non-resident fell by 27%. The most ID filings were in the fields of furnishing (26), means of transportation or hoisting (26), packages and containers for the transportation or handling of goods (22), articles of adornment (18), and fluid distribution equipment, sanitary, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment, solid fuel (16).

Recent news from the Philippines

Recently, we have covered the news of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) and the International Trademark Association (INTA) signing a memorandum of understanding for combating counterfeiting. For working with each other, IPOPHL will seek help with INTA. The assistance that they will get will be in terms of design, trademarks, certification marks, non-traditional marks, renowned and well-known marks. These all assistance will help in avoiding any resemblance, thereby providing less scope of infringement. Activities such as cross-border cooperation, seizures procedures will see a good jump after the MOU. There has been a lot of online counterfeiting trade and this assistance will help in getting into practices for preventing the same. With more brands, there are chances of more counterfeiting goods that need effective coordination with different authorities helping them to streamline coordination. This will also help the court judges for keeping up to date knowledge and staying aware of any new development.

Moreover, those businesses that are at a small scale and have less scope of expansion will greatly benefit from this cooperation. This will help them in their awareness and help them in equipping them with their cost-effective brand management techniques. INTA has its network worldwide with its members in every part of the country. They have been into a variety of activities that will help in learning best practices from them. Not only with the practices from INTA itself but the MOU also states that it will help IPOPHL in a variety of leadership positions at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Working Group on IP Cooperation (AWGIPC) and the ASEAN Network of IP Enforcement Experts (ANIEE). It is to be noted that the Philippines has been a major player in Southeast Asia where it has shared its key role in executing 13 regional IP treaties. INTA was full of praise for the Philippines for noting its creativity and thinking in dealing with problems. It can be noticed by various activities where Philippines attempts to change the structure of the 1997 IP code and even Supreme Court decision to simplify the IP prosecution procedures. This MOU will be executed through the end of 2022 where after that period it will again be evaluated to address new concerns which might have been unaddressed in the present MOU.

Author: Saransh Chaturvedi an associate at Global Patent Filing,  in case of any queries please contact/write back us at support@globalpatentfiling.com.