Schools, Researchers Seek Patent Search Upskilling Amid Need for COVID-19 innovations
17 August 2020
In a bid to heighten innovations that can help curb the spread of COVID-19 and help societies cope with the new normal, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) recently partnered with a number of schools and research institutions to capacitate with a range of methods that can help them use patent information to their advantage.
One such technique was the recently-wrapped up a seven-day workshop for 50 post-graduate students, researchers, and professors from different science departments of the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman who have gained basic knowledge on patent searching. The Patent Information Search Online, wrapped up on August 14, is IPOPHL’s first conduct of the workshop since the country was declared in a state of emergency.
In a press release, Director General Rowel S. Barba said. “This workshop is an online certification course where IPOPHL teaches innovators the techniques of thoroughly dissecting patent documents to make sure innovators obtain the information they need. IPOPHL’s experts show participants how to construct patent search queries, select which patent database best suits them based on their innovation, and make their own unique search strategies."
IPOPHL is not new to patent search workshops, given that one of the mandates of its Documentation, Information and Technology Transfer Bureau (DITTB) is influencing scientists, researchers, and inventors to include patent search in their protocols to avoid repeat innovations and create innovations at a shorter period by building on previous research made
available in patent application documents. Patent documents offer complete and comprehensive information on the technical and legal factors of technology that have been applied for a patent. These serve purposeful to innovators when they review and evaluate the level of uniqueness of their works.
“Novelty is among the ultimate criteria to secure a patent grant. As such, searching through patent databases is a critical part of the early research and development (R&D) process as it helps innovators decide whether they have a fighting chance to secure a patent for their work or if they must enhance it or drop it altogether and move to a next project, saving
innovators time, effort and financial resources from being wasted on non-fruitful endeavors,” Barba added.
COVID demands innovations, patent search skills
With the many challenges brought by the pandemic, the need for patent search capabilities among researchers and innovators has become bigger and bolder, as shown from the number of training requests IPOPHL has been receiving.
”Upskilling patent search capabilities would help drive the technologies our society needs especially in these trying times. This workshop we are holding was actually a result of UP’s request for our assistance to train their researchers who are working on COVID-19 innovations. Although they are already an Innovation and Technology Support Office partner who are regularly provided patent search and drafting trainings, most of their staff are new hires and are still new to patent information searching,” Barba said.
“For this year, we were supposed to provide the training only to state R&D institutions like the Philippine Textile Research Institute, which so happens to have ongoing research work related to COVID. But just recently, in addition to UP's request, the National Research Council of the Philippines and the Adamson University also signified their interest to train their
researchers," DG Barba said, adding IPOPHL is still working out the schedules for the additional requests.
Barba said that they welcome requests for workshops on basic patent search but these still need to be scheduled as determined by the IP Search and Documentation Division of the DITTB.
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