Centers of creativity and innovation

Knowledge is key in a thriving economy—that’s why we are called Homo sapiens, thinking man. But in today’s borderless world, creativity and innovation—more than knowledge, per se—are the drivers in a knowledge-based economy. According to The Economist, “Ideas and innovations have become the most important resource, replacing land, energy and raw materials,” and that there’s a “new arms race in the world; but instead of weapons, corporations are stockpiling patents.”

Thus, management of “intellectual capital,” specifically “intellectual-property assets,” is the single most important task of the individual, businesses, centers of intellectual-property (IP) creation like universities and research and development institutions (RDIs).

Like most developing countries, commercializing technology created by our universities and RDIs has been difficult. Official data from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) show that there are a total of 1,647 higher-education institutions in the country.

However, if we use patent figures as an indicator of technological innovation coming from our centers of innovation, the records of IP Philippines reveal that about 97 percent of patents applied for and granted belong to foreign applicants, and about 3 percent to Filipinos. From 1948 up to 2006, only 21 patents were granted to universities and RDIs. Patent applications from universities and RDIs show a dismal 43 applications from 1995 to 2005.

This is a wake-up call for the government, academe and the private sector.

Early this year, IP Philippines entered into a memorandum of understanding with the CHED to undertake joint programs to build up the capacity of state universities and colleges to harness their IP assets and promote technology commercialization and licensing. The ultimate purpose is to generate investments and employment opportunities with new patented technologies.

Our first joint major activity started yesterday with the opening of the 1st National Conference on Intellectual Property and Technology Commercialization at the Renaissance Hotel, Makati. The two-day conference is organized with the support of the USAID-EMERGE Program. 

The main thrust of the conference is to inform and educate universities and RDIs on the importance of the IP system, particularly the patent system, in protecting, promoting and commercializing innovations. About 150 leaders from the government, academe and the private sector are attending this important event.

Complementing our local resource persons are IP and technology-commercialization experts from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization. They will be sharing their expertise on developing university-wide IP policies, setting up technology-licensing offices and strategies to bring innovations from the universities to the marketplace. There will also be speakers from private venture-capitalist firms to inform the participants about valuating and marketing their IP assets.

There will be a lot of follow-through to be done, this being the first conference of its kind in the Philippines. At the policy level, the CHED and IP Philippines have issued a joint circular directing all universities and RDIs to develop their own IP policies to guide their scientists, researchers and innovators. This is a good start. 

But the success of this endeavor will depend on a fundamental issue: how universities and RDIs will reinvent themselves to address the problems and challenges they face. How will these universities survive in a highly competitive world, where government funding decreases in real value, when the brains of our society seek greener pasture elsewhere and where the country’s technological base cannot sustain economic development?

These are not easy questions and issues. A university must continue its noble purpose to pursue truth and knowledge, for that is crucial in a free society; but it also plays a major role in the country’s development as a center of creativity and innovation.  After all, one need not gain a piece of the world, and lose his soul. As the great inventor, Thomas Edison, said, “The value of an idea is in the use of it.”

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The author is the director general of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines. Comments may be sent to e-mail address: dg_asc@ipophil.gov.ph.

THE anxiety of foreign and local businessmen who view with concern what, to them, may be a potential case of state-driven cannibalization or takeover of the country’s largest and most profitable distribution utility, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), may find echoes in the case of the American Insurance Group (AIG), which, in 2005, was hounded with Rottweiler-like ferocity by Eliot Spitzer, its chairman and patriarch forced to resign just to spare the company from further pain.

Knowledge is key in a thriving economy—that’s why we are called Homo sapiens, thinking man. But in today’s borderless world, creativity and innovation—more than knowledge, per se—are the drivers in a knowledge-based economy.

Everybody hates the fact that prices are going higher. There is no question that price increases are outstripping income, at least in my household. Each day seems to bring new challenges to preserve purchasing power through substitution (DVDs instead of the cinema), conservation (it’s raining, you don’t need the air con on!) and elimination (try my new recipe for lechon bangus).

Alálaong bagá: Confidence in God

An anamnesis of divine goodness

In the manner of retrieval, the text from Deuteronomy tells the audience to call to mind God’s blessings bestowed upon their ancestors, to encourage them to trust that God would be no less generous with them. For the edification of the later generations Israel’s early days were idealized, and the desert period of hardships and grumblings, rebellions and deaths became a romantic symbol of first love and fidelity, focusing on God’s constant care for the people. 

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Subject to certain exceptions, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has five years, following the assessment of taxes, within which to initiate the collection of taxes. But have you ever received a collection notice even after the expiration of this period? If your case is not one of the instances where the suspension of the prescriptive period applies, then you have all the right to contest the collection.

Reflections from the Mirror: A man who loved his country

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