By Melody M. Aguiba, Manila Bulletin via SEAMEO SEARCA

The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), a state-run agency that has established a reputation for top-rated, commercially-viable technologies, has put up its own patenting functions to make it easier for commercializing its inventions.

Probably the only government entity that has put its technologies from laboratory to market, PhilRice believes having its in-house patent agents will raise prospects of government’s making a contribution both to farmers’ improved livelihood and to its scientists’ better welfare.

"Having in-house patent agents is a plus point for PhilRice. Before, each PhilRice scientist had to follow-up on his own with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) his patent application. It’s so taxing for them," said Lawyer Ronilo A. Beronio, PhilRice deputy director and legal counsel, in an interview.

"Now our team of patent agents are focused on this work for all our inventors. We institutionalized our Intellectual Property Rights Policy to protect our own technologies. It will hasten the process," he said.

A highly-specialized field that requires personnel trained in both technical fields and the IP law, patenting imposes on patent agents a license from the IPO through a Patent Agent Qualifying Examination (PAQE).

"In the US, patent agents have Ph.D. on biotechnology or other technical fields who pursue law. Unfortunately, in the country, 90 to 95 percent of patent applications have been drafted abroad. Our lawyers just file them. But we want PhilRice to have the comparative sophisticated patenting capability," he said.

Without an expert’s indepth know-how on a technology hand in hand with a knowledge of IP rights, patenting (which normally takes years for approval even abroad) can be indefinitely protracted if an applicant cannot answer IPO’s inquiry into an invention.

Beronio, also PhilRice’s Intellectual Property Management Office (IPMO) director, said PhilRice’s people had trained on IPR from the Michigan State University.

PhilRice now runs a facility with 30 computers to teach scientists and other professionals for a minimal fee techniques on how to access in the Internet (through a European Patent Office agreement) patent information (invention, inventor, technical description, economic value) worldwide.