Intellectual Property applications up 3.7 percent in 2022

MANILA, Philippines — Intellectual Property (IP) applications grew 3.7 percent in 2022 driven by the strong growth momentum of the country’s economy, according to the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL).

Data from IPOPHL showed that IP applications reached 48,259 last year, higher than the 46,558 filings a year before. This is also two percent higher than the previous record of 47,328 applications in 2019.

“The strong uptake in 2022 IP filings shows how aggressive businesses are in seizing opportunities in the more upbeat economy and the digitalization of business interactions as intensified by the pandemic,” IPOPHL director general Rowel Barba said.

“More Filipinos are beginning to see the competitive value of having a degree of control over their most prized assets: the products of their minds, their IPs. More businesses and entrepreneurs are integrating IP into their strategies for success not despite the pandemic and other economic and environmental challenges in our midst but because of them,” Barba said.

IPOPHL reported that trademark and patent filings, as well as copyright registrations, achieved all time-high last year.

Trademark applications accounted for the bulk of the filings at 41,235, four percent more than the previous year. Of the total 25,253 or 61 percent were by residents and 39 percent or 15,982 by non-residents.

“Bulk of trademark filings were in pharmaceutical, health and cosmetic products (with an 18.4 percent share), followed by agricultural products and services (16.6 percent) and scientific research, information and communication technology (14.9 percent),”IPOPHL said.

Meanwhile, applications for patents, which indicate the appetite to bring commercially viable inventions to market, booked the fastest growth as volumes expanded by 9.3 percent to 4,403. Non-residents accounted for 89 percent or 3,918 while 11 percent or 485 were by residents.

IPOPHL said top applications were recorded in the pharmaceuticals sector at 28.9 percent; organic fine chemistry (12.1 percent); and digital communications (8.3 percent).

In contrast, filings for utility models (UMs), a patent-like IP right to protect innovations, declined to 1,386 from 1,615 in 2022.

Residents accounted for 95 percent of UM filings with 1,315 counts.

“Most UMs filed were in fields of food chemistry (44.6 percent); other special machines (8.8 percent); and basic materials chemistry (4.9 percent), IPOPHL said.

Similarly, applications for industrial designs (ID), an IP for protecting the three-dimensional look of a product, also declined to 1,235 from 1,265. Non-residents accounted for 55 percent or 678 filings.

Top industries for ID applications were transport or hoisting (19.7 percent); packages and containers for the transport or handling of goods (8.7 percent); and furnishing (8.3 percent).

Moreover, registrations for copyright jumped by 73 percent to 3,706 in 2022 as creators scramble to find better ways to protect their copyright in online and physical markets.

IPOPHL said copyright registrations for the period were mainly driven by books, pamphlets, articles, e-books, audio books, comics, novels and other writings (36 percent). This was followed by literary, scholarly, scientific and artistic works (19.7 percent); and drawings, paintings, architectural works, sculpture, engraving, prints, lithography or other works of art, models or designs for works of art (8.6 percent).