The University Intellectual Property Office and Innovations and Technology Support Office (UIPO/ITSO) conducted a Training Workshop on Patent Search and Drafting on October 13-16, 2015 at the MMSU, One-Stop-Information Shop (OSIS), CRL building.

The four-day training-workshop aimed to capacitate faculty and full time researchers and other research team members on basic principles of patenting. Likewise, it was meant to equip researchers with know-how on identification and collection of patentable technologies.  A total of 42 participants attended the training-workshop comprised of 11 full-time researchers, 19 faculty researchers, and 12 job order personnel of special projects and research assistants.

Engr. Emmanuel M. Mendoza, IPRS III and Engr. Eric C. Paden, IPRS IV of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) served as the resource speakers on the said training-workshop. Mendoza discussed topics on the IPO system and intellectual property rights, classification of patent documents, patent granting procedure, introduction to drafting specifications, claim drafting of actual technology, copyright and related materials, and trademarks. 

Paden, on the other hand, talked about the requirements for patentability, basic patent, the how to’s on filling-out a request for registration of patent, utility model, industrial design, and trademark, and the things to know when dealing with examiner’s action.

Workshops were done wherein the participants were required to perform Basic Patent Search and Claim Drafting.  They, likewise, are required to draft the specification of their respective inventions/utility models (UM) to be applied for intellectual property rights. There were a total of 9 identified research outputs ready for applications.

Patent search is known to be the most important skill that researchers and patent agents should initially learn. This involves searching several databases to find out if one’s idea has already been patented. Meanwhile, patent drafting refers to the process of writing patent description and claims, which is the core of any patent application, and in due course, if allowed, of the granted patent specification.

The training-workshop is the second among the series of workshops initiated by the UIPO/ITSO under the leadership of its chief, Dr. Dionisio S. Bucao.  During its first leg, nine patent applications had been filed to IPOPHL and three of these had been granted as Utility Models. (By Maen Alecci Jerez and Laurine Rieta)