By Daniel P. Tapaoan, Jr. 

Consistently proving exemplar performance in patenting activities, Mariano Marcos State University’s innovation and technology support office (UITSO) won in the Patent Search Competition on Innovative Technical Solutions for Business held in Adamson University, Manila on September 8-9. 

Engineer Artbellson Mamuri, UITSO chief, emerged as one of only four winners in the nationwide competition which was part of the Training on Patent Information Retrieval. The activity was spearheaded by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines in partnership with the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia. 

Mamuri successfully accomplished the report form of patent information searching contest which highlighted information on patent publications, importance of utilizing patent information for promoting innovation, and the ideal patent information database needed to promote patent information utilization. He also conducted a patent search information on the Automatic Lacing System technology, reported its results, and compared its intellectual property databank with overseas patent information databases. 

MMSU President Shirley C. Agrupis extended her congratulations to Mamuri “for his persistent efforts, as well as the whole office, which position MMSU in the limelight of inventions, innovations, copyright and patenting.”

The MMSU-UITSO head and other winners in the contest received certificates and cash prizes. Prof. Rommel Viloria of the MMSU College of Industrial Technology also participated in the two-day event. Mamuri and Viloria were among the 28 participants from higher education institutions, micro, small and medium enterprises, law firms and other government and private companies in the country. 

The patent information search training aimed to increase awareness on patent information utilization, cultivate information retrieval and analysis skills, and promote innovations. It also served as an avenue in providing opportunities for education, training, and dissemination regarding the methods of patent search and patent analysis. 

UITSO facilitates the registration of MMSU’s technologies, which forms significant part in accelerating creative and innovative research programs, which comes second in the ACHIEVE agenda of Dr. Agrupis. (HLY/JVBT, StratCom)