Our Bohol tour last week was a success!
Along with strengthened cooperation with our ASEAN partners and global dialogue partners through the ASEAN Working Group on IP Cooperation meeting, we have expanded the reach of our services with the opening of our Bohol IP Help Desk. We hope to have brought the Ube Kinampay and Asin Tibuok one step closer to geographic indication registration and we hope to have enlightened many about IP protection, commercialization, and enforcement through our roadshow.
We felt the interest of the Boholanos to protect and enhance the value of their IP assets. There was no boring crowd during our roadshows, whether the audiences were MSMEs, the young, or the young at heart. Discussions at the press conference were fueled by interesting questions from both reporters and active citizens.
But IPOPHL took home lessons as much as we imparted in this tour. Chief among them is that people are hungry for IP knowledge. Many contemplate how they can protect their works, to what extent they can use the works of others, and what they can do to address issues of infringement, both accidental and obviously intentional.
This void in IP knowledge is not a surprise as awareness continues to be lackluster in the Philippines.
This was shown in a study we conducted in partnership with the World Intellectual Property Organization or WIPO and Nielsen Consumer LLC. The study has established a baseline on the level of IP awareness in the Philippines, among other findings.
The Baseline Study on IP Awareness specifically found that awareness of IP is minimal as only a fifth are aware of the term. About 56 percent even said they are not aware of the word “intellectual property.”
Familiarity with IP is even more concentrated on the words related to IP like “fake,” “piracy” and “counterfeiting” as the majority positively responded when asked if they knew this.
But beyond increasing awareness rates, we aim to intensify our awareness campaign also horizontally to engage people from the provinces and provide everyone equitable access to IP information. The lack of IT infrastructure in a far-flung area should not deter us. We must ensure that innovation and creativity are spread across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Now, many of IPOPHL’s Bureaus down to our Communications and Marketing Office will be touring regions this year to recreate the success we achieved in Bohol.
On the local government level, IP creation should be treated as a tool to show competitiveness.
The IP application and registration is after all one of the 10 indicators of the Innovation Pillar under the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index — an annual index that ranks cities and municipalities based on five pillars, namely, Economic Dynamism, Government Efficiency, Infrastructure, Resiliency, and Innovation.
The IP category shows the capabilities of the people of a local government to create, develop and put out new innovative products, services, and processes.
Who knows, our next roadshow might just come across our local counterpart of Elon Musk or the next pop group to start the Philippine version of the Korean wave. And knowing the potential value of their IP may be the difference between mere possibilities and better opportunities coming to life.