IPO pushes for IP education

          Intellectual Property Office (IPO) Director General Adrian S. Cristobal, Jr. has endorsed the bill that was filed by Senator Loi Estrada that seeks to include intellectual property courses, particularly the copyright law in the country’s educational system.

          In pushing for the proposed measure, Cristobal said that the mandatory teaching of the courses in all schools will institutionalize the country’s education and knowledge on IP and will expose the Filipinos to its issues even at their early age.

          The filing of the bill comes at a time when the government is working hard to strengthen the country’s IP structure, realizing that a strong and fully functional system will encourage investments that would create jobs and bring additional income for the government.

          Senate Bill 1869 mandates the “teaching of an intellectual property ownership particularly copyright law as part of the curriculum in all primary, secondary and tertiary schools in the country and for other purposes.”

          It also seeks to reinforce and put into action the intent of Section 13 of Article XIV of the Constitution, which requires the government to protect the exclusive rights of scientists, inventors, artists and other gifted citizens of their IP and creations.

          Meanwhile, the IPO is already finalizing a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Department of Education (DepEd), which seeks to include IPR courses in the core curriculum for the primary and secondary schools nationwide.

          ”Creating an ‘IP culture’ among the youth promotes appreciation for artistic and scientific creations,” Cristobal said.

          Under the terms of the proposed agreement, public school teachers will benefit from a training program and specialized local and foreign seminars on IP whose module will be developed and implemented by the IPO with the education department.

          IPO will also provide the educators the necessary reference and reading materials on IP to effectively communicate the importance of IP for cultural heritage and the promotion of creativity and innovation to their students.

          Recently, the Philippine National Police Anti-Fraud and Commercial Crimes Division of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, which is working with the IPO, raided a bookstore in Quezon City for illegally imprinting books.

          The medical books worth more than half a million pesos were published without the permissions from their international authors and publishers.

          The proposed measure noted that despite the existence of laws safeguarding IP, piracy and infringement cases still exist as these laws are either derogated or circumvented.

          One of the laws is the Book Publishing Industry Development Act, which enjoins every Filipino to respect and inculcate the concept of intellectual property ownership and protect the rights of authors and publishers by strictly enforcing copyright l aws and providing legal assistance to them.

          Estrada said that protecting IP will foster creativity, stir the Filipinos’ drive for nationalism and lessen if not at all cut their reliance on international creativity.