It’s a new dawn for artists, inventors, and other gifted Filipino citizens as the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) completes the third stage of the Performance Governance System (PGS) pathway in its online public revalida last October 25. 

Vying for the PGS Proficient status, the government agency successfully presented its milestones, progress, and goals in the PGS pathway, bagging the Silver Trailblazer Award.

Atty. Rowel S. Barba, the general director of IPOPHL, proudly shared the organization’s plans to position the Philippines in the top forty (40) of the overall Global Innovation Index ranking by 2024. 

The IPOPHL was granted its Compliant Status in 2016 for its performance towards accomplishing the agency’s 2024 Strategy Map. After six years of hard work, Atty. Barba shared their breakthroughs, including an increased number of public and private educational institutions capacitated in intellectual property, a shorter processing time for cases, and the intellectual property systems developed.

Although IPOPHL’s mandate is to administer and implement state policies on intellectual property, during the panel evaluation, Atty. Barba mentioned that they also took the initiative to support the commercialization of intellectual property in collaboration with other government agencies, such as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

“What we do is now support DOST and DTI on commercialization efforts. We signed the SCITECH memorandum with DOST in capacitating them to ensure all requirements for patents are complete, so we can have [a] faster examination. We hope to monitor the commercialization process together with other government agencies involved in the commercialization of IPs,” he said.

Atty. Barba also shared that they are building a culture of innovation with two significant achievements: securing approval for innovation drivers and incentivizing research institutions and convincing DTI to include the number of intellectual property filings as one of the indicators for the innovation pillar.

“IP [intellectual property] is just one part of the innovation process because it takes more than IP to innovate. Most importantly, it needs a mindset change. It is a part of the innovation, customer service, branding, everything – and IP is just one part of the innovation ecosystem or innovation journey. It cannot be done overnight,” he said.

Atty. Barba expressed his gratitude to the panel members, the Institute for Solidarity in Asia, and the men and women of IPOPHL. He shared a compelling message with the audience, hoping to inspire the members of the institution to raise the standards of public service.

“This award under the Performance Governance System shows that we are headed in the right direction to become a strategy-focused organization, responsive to the needs of our stakeholders by delivering breakthrough results. While the Silver Trailblazer award is something to be proud of, this award has also shown that we can still improve so much in our journey towards good governance,” he said.