by Alex Roldan
Invention and innovation have proven to be crucial components for the development of modern societies. No one can question the fact that these are the keys to success in improving the living standard of the people in developed countries.
The proof is insurmountable – that in our modern world, the countries that are fast in churning out inventions and innovations are the countries that achieve significant and sustained economic expansion and are more effective in alleviating the poverty condition of their people.
The Philippines is with no doubt in dire need of these. Yet, despite the fact that Filipinos have an innate ability to be creative, existing conditions tend to stifle innovation and creativity outright – that discourages local inventors to work harder. Not only that, even our educational system is generally designed to produce workers instead of a creative and adventurous population that will dare venture into investing in new ideas or develop new ones. Or, if you have a new idea or an invention, you are assured that it will most likely end up just a dream for the originators, stolen by others, or are sold cheap to other countries.
Now, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is urging media to support local inventors and their inventions to increase the number of local patents. They believe that good media exposure for them should suffice to increase the number of local patents. Moreover, they presume that with good media exposure, inventors would be inspired to work harder which would eventually solve the anemic turnout of local patents.
I cannot argue with that. However, giving patents to innovations and inventions is not the only concern of those who have “beautiful minds.” They need support right from the start – from the moment the idea flashes in their minds, prototyping, and eventually converting it into a workable process, system, tools, technology etc. Patent is just a piece of paper; the inventors’ ultimate dream is to see their inventions actually being used and contributing to the betterment of society and country.
That is the key! A proof to show that there is future for Filipino inventions. Media exposure can certainly perk up interest, but making it viable and, most importantly, the inventor’s betterment, that their rights are amply protected, are issues that have to be reckoned with.
Who can forget what happened to Dr. Abellardo Aguilar when he discovered the most efficient antibiotic called “Erythromycin” – the alternative for penicillin-allergic patients? Millions have benefitted from the discovery, and the company, Eli Lilly, has amassed wealth beyond its expectations, yet Dr. Aguilar died a poor man!
The Intellectual Property Rights is against stealing, yet many ideas and inventions of Filipinos have deprived them of the benefits of their efforts. The sad part of it is that those who have patents are still in limbo as to who can help them pursue their dreams.
The government should set up a mechanism to help ideas prosper. This country should invest even in “copy-cating!” This is one of the ways if this country wants to survive in this very competitive world. This is the strategy of other successful countries, i.e. Japan, Korea and China. They first mimick manufacturing techniques and later become world economic leaders. India is “piggy-backing” by performing service work for rich countries and by adapting information technology to local needs, or even “leap-frogging” by skipping technologies that are inappropriate in a given place and time.
We need to learn from successful cases of social enterprise and from successful models for stimulating inventions and innovations by creating incentives that cultivate creativity on the local level.
In the long term, education reform must be a top priority. We have to replace the learning that is based on memorization with learning that stimulates creativity, entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary research, hands-on learning, ethics, values and original thinking. The government can even give incentives to companies which invest in innovations.
As for the patent office, if they want to increase patent applications, it should make intellectual property protection more affordable!
For comments, e-mail to alexcroldan@gmail.com
