Director General’s Message in Celebration of Intellectual Property Month Philippines 2020: Driving Eco-innovation through Intellectual Property

April 1, 2020

Letting loose the wrath of the lethal COVID-19 may be Nature’s way of moving toward a restoration of the ecological balance which we humans have perverted for too long, all in the name of selfish developmental interests.

The World Health Organization said the novel coronavirus is a disease that jumped to humans from animals, with bats as the likely source. The United Nations Environment Programme has warned that the world is witnessing a rise in zoonotic diseases like the coronavirus family due to the “unprecedented destruction” of ecosystems by human activity.

This year, we heard Nature’s cries not only through the blow of a pandemic pathogen but also in the apocalyptic wildfires of Australia, the avalanche in Turkey’s eastern Van Province, and the rainstorms in Brazil’s Southeast Region which was recorded to have the heaviest rainfall in more than 110 years. While their resulting fatalities and damage to wildlife vary, all are equally jarring and should be alarming causes for us to get our acts together.

As we mourn and hold on hopes with the rest of the world, the Philippines will celebrate the annual Intellectual Property (IP) Month this April 2020 with the theme “Driving Eco-Innovation thru Intellectual Property.” With this theme, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) urges innovators to develop solutions that are always in harmony with our environment. 

Although we have been preparing for this IP Month’s activities weeks before the local COVID-19 outbreak, we knew better than to push through and endanger our stakeholders, exactly why we suspended all activities even before the Metro-Manila-wide quarantine ordered by the Malacañang. 

But IPOPHL will not suspend efforts in raising awareness on the importance of IP, especially in these times of adversity—one of the significant purposes of the IP system is to stir socially beneficial solutions through incentivizing inventors and innovators while ensuring that the fruits of these innovations are within the general public’s reach.  

IPOPHL, through its social media accounts, will be very active throughout April in sharing interesting facts on trademark, patent, utility model, industrial design, and copyright. Our campaign will draw on the different reasons to celebrate the IP system and its indispensable role to our economic development, cultural advancement, and, most importantly, in strengthening our environmental consciousness. 

We hope this virtual IP Month Philippines 2020 will be far-reaching. We hope the IP system can aid not only in the world’s search to find a quick fix medicine and a vaccine to combat COVID-19, but also in developing long-term, innovative solutions for the healing of Nature.

Atty. Rowel S. Barba

Director General