The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) are renewing their partnership to promote and strengthen IP awareness and understanding among Filipino businesses and entrepreneurs.

 

At meetings of PCCI and WIPO on May 13 and 19, PCCI President George T. Barcelon and WIPO Officer-in-Charge Peter Willimott agreed that there should be a national strategy to build respect for IP and develop tools for awareness raising.

 

Emphasizing the importance of IP to corporate competitiveness, Barcelon said, “Companies have become more mindful of innovation and are now always on the look-out for strategies to succeed.  Intellectual property is important to achieve this goal as it protects an asset that may be integral to the over-all and long-term viability of a business”

 

As increasing costs, inaccessibility, and excessive time in processing are mainly the issues that continue to pose challenges in the country’s IP sector, Mr. Anton Sayo, Chairman of the PCCI Intellectual Property committee, emphasized the specific areas of IP that necessitate assistance.  This includes the involvement of local government units (LGUs) in awareness programs, legislation issues, and curriculum development in public universities, especially, in STEM courses.

 

Willimott expressed WIPO’s interest to engage PCCI to help in the Chamber’s advocacies for IP awareness and understanding.

 

“The long-term engagements include working with relevant agencies to add innovation components to school curriculum, similar to how the WIPO academy develops its curriculum.  The short term, on the other hand, involves capacitating businesses on brand protection, particularly, among the SMEs,” Willimott said.

 

The PCCI and WIPO agreed to hold a webinar series composed of topics on brand protection, ensuring IPs are protected online, and expansion of businesses in the digital world can be hosted in the WIPO or PCCI pages.

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Legislations needed to promote IPR

 

Discussing the types of Intellectual Property rights in the Philippines, which comprises of Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Industrial Design and Geographical Indication (GI), Barcelon said giving a push to IPOPHL to introduce and lobby for the GI law in Congress will generate positive outcomes seeing as it can benefit various sectors of the country such as the agriculture, arts and crafts, and tourism sector.

 

With regard to Filipinos’ creative thinking, IP, particularly copyright-based industries like music, theater, media, literature, and arts were found to provide a large contribution to the GDP.  Hence, Atty. Blancaflor stressed that the government should ramp up their support to these industries to aid creative Filipino minds in realizing their full potential.

 

“Copyright is important in every Filipino mind especially in music and acting. This has the potential to rival our neighboring countries like South Korea and China.” He mentioned.

 

PCCI has had a staunch relationship with WIPO as the two have previously partnered up in a few events aimed at educating MSMEs on how to protect their brand and avoid becoming victims of malicious cybercrimes. Through future partnerships, both PCCI and WIPO hope to help the country recover from the effects of pandemic through Intellectual Property awareness and innovation across different industries. ­--- Avery Del Mundo

 

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