Cebu's quality designs vulnerable to copycats

While Cebu boasts of its pool of lead designers and export quality designs, most companies here do not have Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection making Cebu's very own designs vulnerable to copycats.

Intellectual Property Office director general Adrian Cristobal said that a lot of industries in Cebu depend on creativity and design capabilities, however they are hesitant to make an investment for the protection of their crafts and designs.

There are hundreds of furniture, home furnishing, fashion accessory, exporters in Cebu, however only a few of them registered their creations or design with the IPO, said Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Cebu provincial office director Nelia Navarro.

Cristobal was here in Cebu early this week, to promote the importance of IPR to design or creativity driven industries including the growing software development sector here.

Aside from designs, Cristobal said there are also business concepts in Cebu that need protection, as these concepts can easily be copied and patterned after by opportunists.

During the an Intellectual Property forum dubbed "Mugna Namo Bai" organized by the DTI-CPO, renowned Cebuano designers discussed on the importance of protecting "our own" creations, with the trend of rampant piracy especially by the Chinese.

Furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue, fashion accessory designer Butch Carungay, design entrepreneur Jay Aldeguer, among others were few of the key resource persons in the whole day discussion on the importance of protecting the design creations and other innovative concepts.

An IP is an asset, an intangible asset, can be bought, and sold, licensed, exchanged or given away gratuitously like any other form of property.

The importance of the IP system is to prevent competitors from copying a technology or product innovation; avoid wasteful investment in Research and Development (R&D) and marketing, create and enhance corporate identity; facilitate negotiations of licensing, franchising or other IP-based agreements, among others.

A company may register for trademark, in order to protect their company identifications. A trademark means any visible sign capable of distinguishing the goods of an enterprise, such as Penshoppe, Bench, Jollibee, Goldilocks, among others.

Design entrepreneur Jay Aldeguer for his part said his company Island Souvenirs Inc. (ISI) only registered its brand with trademark, but they has not registered its design through patent.

Aldeguer said registering their designs is too expensive and requires tedious process.

According to Cristobal, for design patent, a company or individual can protect his design once filed with the IPO for seven years with an exclusive ownership right.