DLSU-ITSO holds ASEAN-wide IP summit

De La Salle University Innovation and Technology Support Office (DLSU-ITSO), with University Legal Counsel and IP lawyer Attorney Christopher E. Cruz and several delegates from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) held a talk earlier today on the 13th floor of the Henry Sy building regarding the current status, developments and challenges faced by DLSU’s Intellectual Property (IP) policies.

Also present for the talk is Intellectual Property Advocates (IPA) former president Kent So, who recently graduated and is now a part of DLSU’s Academic Services Group, under the International Center. The IPA serves as an extension of DLSU-ITSO’s advocacies on promoting the IP rights of students and faculty members.

On IP

Among matters discussed in the talk is the need to make the students and faculty members more aware of what purpose and objectives IP policies actually provide. Former IPA President So explains that once a student, faculty member, writer or any inventor produces certain materials – including dissertations, theses, musical compositions, technological products, essays and several others – they have the individual right of securing ownership on these materials or ‘patents’ by imposing IP rights. Moreover, these materials can also be further commercialized locally and internationally.

Atty. Cruz says that one of DLSU-ITSO’s goals for this year is to make the Lasallian community more aware of how relevant these IP rights are. First and foremost, he explains that DLSU is composed of an academic council consisting of the deans and faculty members involved with plans of fully implementing IP policies in the University. According to Cruz, there are ongoing talks which propose to incorporate IP policies into the educational curriculum of DLSU, and ideally for other schools in the Philippines. This way, IP can become a new and innovative field of study which students could explore and consider pursuing a career in.

Cruz further explains that the entire ITSO network that DLSU-ITSO is part of would hopefully become a regional network not only in the Philippines, but also among other Asian countries as well.

Challenges and continuing plans

One of the major problems faced with regards to implementing IP policies in the University is the lack of IP awareness among the students and faculty members. As stated by Cruz, in order to ‘demystify’ the ignorance or common notions on IP, DLSU-ITSO is currently holding various IP trainings, management efforts and seminars that would initially introduce to the students and faculty members the benefits and incentives provided by IP.

Other trainings and seminars include that of patent searching, patent drafting and assisting patent applicants. The patenting serves as a legitimization process by which the applicants could claim full ownership rights for the materials they’ve produced.

Aside from establishing these various seminars, some of DLSU-ITSO’s continuing plans on fully implementing IP policies include that of establishing an innovation center in De La Salle University Science and Technology Complex (DLSU-STC), continuing to file patent applications, targeting IP collaboration across colleges and schools, incentivizing and teaching faculty members on the relevance of IP and turning DLSU into the “beacon of IP protection and commercialization.”