IPOPHL brings IP experts for universities’ patent skills upgrading

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), in partnership with the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) gathered  IP experts to hone the patent prosecution skills of the country’s most intellectual property-focused universities.

Twelve of the country’s most IP-productive public and private higher educational institutions gathered at the IPOPHL on Monday (October 8) to undergo a five-day mentoring session by international IP patent attorneys and experts from the United Kingdom and the United States.

“The IPOPHL puts a premium on practical capacity-building activities which are focused on achieving concrete, attainable results - not just theories. The goal here is to impart actual skills in patent drafting and prosecution which is an ever-evolving art, and to which our skills must always adapt. I hope the higher educational institutions (HEIs) here will cherish this kind of training and cascade the knowledge to their own universities,” Director General Josephine R. Santiago said during her opening remarks.

The IP experts selected by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) were Mr. David Musker,a patent attorney at Maucher Jenkins in London and a professor at the Queen Mary University; Mr. James Snaith, also a patent attorney at Kilburn & Strode in London; and Mr. Robert J. Sayre,  patent attorney at Modern Times Legal in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The local experts tapped by IPOPHL are Dr. Jesus Sevilleja, Professor at the National Institutes of Health at the University of the Philippines Manila, and Atty. Jerry Serapion, intellectual property rights specialist.

This National Patent Drafting Course is one of the many capacity-building activities carried out under the wider Enabling IP Environment (EIPE) Project of WIPO which entails intensive capacity-building of selected universities known as the IP Spokes.

The project’s overall objective is to strengthen the IP and IP-related competencies of universities in the area of technology development, management, and commercialization, so they may eventually be able to harness the technology to be of practical use to society.

The IP Spokes were selected on the basis of their technology and IP-generating activities. These HEIs were considered to benefit the most from intensive training and mentoring on patent drafting and prosecution. There are 14 IP Spokes in the Philippines.

The IP Spokes in attendance on Monday were Adamson University, Bataan Peninsula State University, Palawan State University, Technological University of the Philippines, University of the Philippines Diliman, University of the Philippines Manila, University of Sto. Tomas, Caraga State University, Capiz State University, Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology, Negros Oriental State University, and the University of San Carlos.

The universities will be tasked to prepare a patent invention application based on an invention they have developed in the course of the mentoring workshop.

After the five-day session, the online mentoring phase will run for the next three months as a follow-up session, during which time the patent application will continuously be improved by the IP Spokes under the supervision of the IP experts.

The IPOPHL continuously refines the skills and competencies of its partner universities to help them deliver patent services of the highest quality to the IP creators.