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The Philippine
government has made it a State
policy to protect and promote intellectual property rights. This
policy was enshrined both in the 1973 Constitution which provides that
“the exclusive right to inventions, writings and artistic creations
shall
be secured to inventors, authors, and artists for a limited period” and
in the 1987 Constitution which explicitly mandates that the State shall
protect intellectual property.
The
Philippines became a member of the World
Intellectual Property Organization [WIPO] in 1980. It was a
signatory
to a number of significant multilateral international
agreements and treaties for the protection and promotion of
intellectual
property rights.
The first laws
protecting intellectual property
rights were enacted in the Philippines in 1947, to wit:
Republic Act No. 165 otherwise known as “An Act Creating a Patent
Office,
Prescribing its Powers and Duties, Regulating
the Issuance of Patents and Appropriating Funds Therefor”.
Republic Act No. 166 otherwise known as “An Act to Provide for the
Registration
and Protection of
Trade Marks, Trade Names
and Service Marks, Defining Unfair Competition and False Marking and
Providing Remedies Against
the Same, and for other Purposes”.
Subsequent to
the foregoing, additional laws
were enacted and issuances promulgated to further promote and protect
intellectual
property rights, to wit:
Republic Act No. 422 transferring the examination of copyright
applications
to the Bureau of Public
Libraries.
Republic Act No. 623 regulating the use of duly stamped or marked
bottles,
boxes, casks, kegs,
barrels, and other similar
containers; providing, in the case of foreign applicants, for
reciprocity
and
recognition of their
priority
rights; establishing, in the case of trademarks, principal and
supplemental
as well as interference
proceedings; extending protection of utility models and
industrial
designs
under the patent system;
and providing, in the case of trademark registration, for reciprocity arrangement with other
countries.
Republic Act No. 5434 providing for a uniform procedure for appeals
from
the decision of
quasi-judicial officers
including the Director of Patents.
Administrative Order No. 94 [November 20, 1967] creating a committee to
review the Philippine
patent system and recommend
amendatory laws to further upgrade it.
Presidential Decree No. 721 creating the Legal Services Division and
the
Research and
Information Division in
the Philippine Patent Office. Subsequently, major reorganization of
the various Divisions
was made in the 1980's. The General Organic Chemistry Division
and the ChemicalTechnology
Division were merged to form the Chemical Division. The
Mechanical-Electrical
Divisionwas
merged with the Mechanical, Design, Utility Model Division
and Electrical Division
to form the Mechanical and Electrical
Examining
Division.
Presidential Decree No. 1263 amending Republic Acts Nos. 165 and 166,
granting
authority to
the Philippine
Patent Office to increase its fees and to spend a portion of its income
for priority
projects; exempting
indigent inventors who filed their application for patent through the
Philippine
Inventor's Commission
from all fees charged by the Philippine Patent Office; and shortening
the period for thegrant
of a compulsory license from one hundred eighty [180] days to one
hundred twenty [120]
daysfrom
the date the petition is filed in cases where the compulsory
license applied for is
on a patented product or process
involving
any project approved by
the Board of Investments
[BOI].
Executive Order No. 133 [February 27, 1987] merging the Philippine
Patent
Office with the then
Technology Transfer Board
thereby creating the Bureau of Patents, Trademarks and Technology
Transfer [BPTTT].
Executive Order No. 60 was issued in 1993 creating the Inter-Agency
Committee
on Intellectual
Property Rights [IAC-IPR]
under the Office of the President of the Philippines.
Department Administrative Orders Nos. 5 and 6 introduced amendments to
the Rules of Practice
in Patent
and Trademark Cases and the Rules of Procedures of the Technology
Transfer
Registry
effective on March 15,
1993.cralaw:red
Republic Act No. 8293 otherwise known as the Intellectual
Property Code of the Philippines was
enacted and signed into
law in 1997. It took effect on January 1, 1998.
OTHER SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS
On March
8, 1988, the first issue of
the BPTTT Official Gazette was launched.
In 1992, the
Philippine Association of Certified
Patent Agents [PACPA] was incorporated thereby recognizing and
promoting
the patent agent profession in the Philippines.
In the same
year, the CD-ROM Version of the
bibliographic data of registered Philippine patents was introduced.
In 1993, the
Kantor-Navarro Agreement was signed
as a result of the negotiations between the Philippines and the United
States for the purpose of delisting the Philippines from the Priority
Watch
List of Countries covered by the Super 301 List under the United States
Trade Act.
In October of
the same year, the Philippine
component of the EC-ASEAN Programme on Patents and Trademarks was
officially
launched thereby strengthening the capability of Industrial Property
Offices
in ASEAN to administer their respective patents and trademarks systems
and to further facilitate the exchange of patent information among
ASEAN
members. Under this program, a Patent Documentation Center was
established
in Cebu in 1994.
In 1994, the
patent and trademark search and
examination procedures were modernized through the assistance of the
European
Commission. Made available were 2 CD-ROM work stations and a
complete
set of ESPACE CD-ROM containing the abstracts, first page and full text
of the applications filed from 1988 to 1994 with the European Patent
Office.cralaw:red
In 1995,
special courts were designated by
the Philippine Supreme Court to hear cases involving intellectual
property
rights. | 
