What is the relevance of intellectual property to developing countries?
That was the question posed by one of the speakers at a colloquium on Intellectual Property Education, Training and Research sponsored by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) and the Intellectual Property of the Philippines (IPO).
The man asking the question was Dr. Mpazi Sinjela, the Dean of the WIPO Worldwide Academy. He was from Zambia and he spoke about how coffee is bought at US$2.70 per kilogram from farmers in Ethiopia and sold at US$2.00 per cup in Starbucks. That is possible because Starbucks used its trademarks effectively, he pointed out.
It is very common to hear that intellectual property laws are just tools that First World countries use to make more money off us, the denizens of developing countries. Our medicines are supposedly the second most expensive in Asia (after Japan) because of our patent laws. Our government uses its limited resources to prosecute film and music pirates who copy foreign films. It would seem as if intellectual property laws exist to promote foreign interests. Government agencies like the Optical Media Board function like security guards for film companies in Hollywood.
Probably because of this, I've heard people call themselves "ethical pirates." They claim that they only buy originals of works by Filipinos and buy unlicensed versions of other materials.
Others have a different attitude. They think that the world's intellectual property regime is a reality that needs to be faced. They obtain the skills needed for the game and play. Dr. Sinjela cited mushroom growers in Vietnam who banded together to market a traditional agricultural product under a collective trademark. Thailand uses geographical indication to protect its jasmine rice. This means that the same variety of rice not grown in Thailand cannot be called jasmine rice. In Taiwan, researchers in scientific institutes manage to come up with five patents for their inventions everyday.
Obviously, they recognized that there is a lot of wealth that can be made from an intangible asset like intellectual property. Dr. Sinjela said that in Europe, for example, 40-60% of corporate property consists of intangible assets. In the United States, 75% of the value of publicly-traded companies come from intellectual property. If we are able to generate that, we may not need to send OFWs abroad to keep our domestic economy afloat.
That sounds like wishful thinking but it is not impossible. In the same forum, speakers from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the University of the Philippines talked about their programs to promote creativity and assist inventors in making money off their inventions. The DOST has ongoing programs to give assistance to scientists and inventors. UP is building a science and technology park where university-based technology businesses could be incubated.
In 2007, the IPO created the Intellectual Property Research and Training Institute. The Institute has programs for scientists, researchers, lawyers, business executives and patent examiners to train them on how to maximize commercial benefits from their innovations and to raise the standards of patent practice in the country.
Those are small steps and we have a long way to go before we are able to fully benefit from the globalized, knowledge-based economy. China, for example, has an experimental program where intellectual property is taught to children in elementary school. Creativity is encouraged at that age.
In the meantime, I will daydream about a Filipino inventing melt-in-your-mouth ice cream, an indoor garden that takes care of itself, and clothes that find their way to their proper place in the closet.
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Email: lkemalilong@yahoo.com