Intellectual Property Strategies and Protection

• Intellectual property pertains to original creations of human intellect, including artistic, literary, technical, and scientific works.
• Intellectual property, as defined by IPOPHL, is an asset that can be commercialized, licensed, or franchised to increase business value.
• Countries protect intellectual property to give legal expression to creators' moral and economic rights and to promote creativity.

Intellectual Property Rights

• Refers to the legal rights granted to inventors or creators to protect their inventions.

Traditional Knowledge

• Knowledge shared without recognition to the contributors, encompassing areas like numbers and mathematics.

History of IP System

• The term "Hasagat Ge'vul," meaning "unfair encroachment," was used to justify limited-term copyright in the 16th century.
• The Talmud contains prohibitions against mental crimes, including "Geneivat da'at" (mind theft), interpreted as the theft of ideas.
• In the 15th century, privileges were instruments by which sovereigns granted special rights to individuals.
• The Republic of Venice was the first to adopt a statute for this form of privilege (Parte Veneziana of 1474).
• Patent protection was codified between 1790 and 1883.
• The United States (1790) and France (1791) adopted patent laws to grant patents to all inventors.
• The Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, also known as the Paris Convention, was established on March 20, 1883
• Covers patents, industrial designs, and utility models.
• The Association Litteraire et Artistique Internationale, under the Berne Convention (1886), provides protection for literary and artistic works (copyright).
• The Madrid Agreement on the International Registration of Marks includes the Madrid Protocol (1891) and covers trademarks.
• The United International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI) was formed in 1893 by combining the Paris and Berne Conventions.
• The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was created from BIRPI in 1967.
• In 1974, WIPO joined the UN.
• In 1978, the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) led to the start of international patent systems, including IPOPHL in the Philippines.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

• Serves as a global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information, and cooperation, with 193 member states.
• Aims to lead the development of a balanced and effective international IP system, enabling innovation and creativity.

Membership

• Requires being a member of the Paris Union or the Berne Union and the United Nations, with invitations from the WIPO General Assembly.

Areas of Conflict

• Traditions, customs, and practices of regions, religions, and communities, including agricultural, scientific, technical, ecological, and medicinal knowledge, is not protected by IP systems.
• TK: Defensive Protection includes strategies to prevent illegitimate IP rights over traditional knowledge and prevent patents based on misappropriation of TK.
• Joint Administrative Order No. 1, s. 2016, protects the intellectual creations of indigenous people, prevents misappropriation, and encourages tradition-based creations and innovations, such as T'nalak Weaving.
• TK: Positive Protection seeks to grant exclusive rights, such as registrable and renewable hand-woven T’nalak fabrics.

Competition Law

• Promotes competition and increase market access

Anti-competitive (Too Much IP)

• Occurs when IP is unduly extended to grant exclusivity over non-differentiating features.

Too little IP

• Occurs when efficient enforcement is unavailable, or genuinely differentiating features cannot be protected, leading to imitation.

Human Rights Perspective

• Conflicts arise when IP rights hinder human rights or societal interests, like access to knowledge, cultural participation, and essential goods/services.

Legal Bases of Intellectual Property System: RA 8293

• Intellectual Property is divided into Industrial Property (patent, utility model, industrial design, geographic indication, trademarks, trade secret) and Copyright (literary works, artistic works).
• INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CODE (RA 8293) prescribes the intellectual property code, establishing the intellectual property office, its powers, and functions, and protects the exclusive rights of scientists, inventors, artists, and other citizens.
• RA 165 regulates the issuance of Patents while RA 166 registration and protection of Trademarks, Tradenames, and Service-marks
• A shift was made from “first-to-invent system" to "first-to-file system"
• Invention grants were increased from 17 years to 20 years from date of filling, and Utility Models grants were increased from 5 years to 7 years.
• Penalties of infringement range from PHP 100,000 – PHP 300,000 and/or 6 months up to 3 years of imprisonment.

Government Agencies

• The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) implements the intellectual property code and is divided into 6 bureaus: Bureau of Patents, Bureau of Trademarks, Bureau of Legal Affairs, Documentation, Information, and Technology Transfer Bureau, Management Information System and Electronic Data Processing Bureau, and Administrative, Financial and Personnel Services Bureau.

Intellectual Property in the Philippines

• In 1987, Executive Order No. 3 created the Bureau of Patents, Trademarks, and Technology Transfer (BPTTT).
• On June 6, 1997, the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines authored by Raul S. Roco was signed into law and BPTTT was abolished, IPOPHL was instituted.
• In 2001, the Philippines became a member of WIPO and a contracting party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
• Intellectual Property is not absolute and subject to exceptions, limitations and registration with IPOPHL is only valid within the Philippines
• You may file in other countries through treaties we have acceded to, and IP laws in various countries may differ.
• Intellectual property is an asset that increase market value, is be sold, assigned, transferred, commercialized, licensed, franchised
• Can serve as security/ collateral for loans and provide recognition to the owner
• Patent is an exclusive right granted for new, inventive, useful product, process, or an improvement of one, with a 20-year term of protection.

Patentable Inventions

• Any technical solution of a problem in any field of human activity which is new, involves an inventive step, and is industrially applicable.

Non-patentable Inventions

• Computer programs, plant varieties or animal breeds, and inventions contrary to public order, health, welfare or morality

Requirements for filing a Patent

• Include a request, description, drawings, claims (features), and abstract
• Utility Model (UM) is a protection option for innovations that are not sufficiently inventive for standard patents, with a 7-year term of protection.

Industrial Design

• Requires unique ornamental or aesthetic aspect of an article, 5 years of terms of protection and may consist of three-dimensional features, such as shape or surface, or two-dimensional features, such as patterns, lines, or color.

Trademarks

• The law on Trademarks includes any visible sign (Mark) which capable of distinguishing the goods or services (service mark) of an enterprise and a Trade name, the name identifying and distinguishing an enterprise (10 years protection)
• Trademark: a tool use that differentiates goods and services from each other
• The Trademark can be protected through registration and can comprise a word, phrase, sign, symbol, logo, or a combination.

Copyright

• A collection of rights automatically vested to someone who creates an original work of authorship, like a literary work, song, movie, or software.
• Protection for literary and artistic works and derivative works
• For the lifetime of the author plus 50 years, can be extended by +20 for broadcasts, +25 for applied arts

Literary and Artistic works

• Consists of books, pamphlets, articles, periodicals and newspapers, lectures, musical compositions, drawings, and computer programs
• No copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the Philippines

Economic Rights

• Reproduce, transform/adapt, distribute, rent, display, perform in public, communicate with the public.

Moral Rights

• Right to be attributed as the author, make alterations and object to any distortion that could damage honor or reputation
• Right to restrain use of his name for a work that he did not create.

Copyright Infringement

• Occurs when there is a violation of the economic rights (selling, letting, distributing, trade exhibit) granted to the copyright owner
• Rights of a Copyright Owner include Economic Rights (reproduction, distribution, rental, importation, public performance, broadcasting, communication) and Moral Rights (attribution, integrity, withdrawal, false attribution).
• Limitations on Copyright include private performances, quotations, news reporting, educational use, government uses, archives preservation, personal reproduction, and computer interoperability.
• Derivative works may be original by selecting contents and are protected as new works
• Only the owner of the original copyright has the right to authorize someone to create a derivative work

Fair Use

• Applies to copyrighted work for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research, with assessment factors of Purpose & Character, Nature, Amount, and Effect on Market

Infringement

• Performing publicly without any consent of the owner, using copyrighted work for business, distributing for trade or import, reproduction, circulating among unauthorized people, adaptation or translation, and resale or renting.

Remedies for Infringement

• Injunctions, damages, confiscation with criminal penalties:
• 1st offense: 1-3 years imprisonment + PHP 50,000-150,000 fine
• 2nd offense: 3-6 years imprisonment + PHP 150,000-500,000 fine.
• 3rd offense: 6-9 years imprisonment + PHP 500,000-1,500,000 fine.
• Copyright Infringement uses protected works without permission and Plagiarism claims someone’s work as their own without referencing