Wealth of creative work needs patent protection

Creative industries in Cebu should apply for patents to protect  original works and designs from piracy.

This is the first step to secure valuable work especially  in the emerging animation sector, said  Nelia Navarro,  regional director of the Department of Trade and Industry in Central Visayas.

DTI-7 is coordinating with the  Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) to help private enterprises register their original concepts and products.
The office will hold its  first National  Summit in October where new rules in applying for patents  will be presented, said IPOPHL deputy director general Andrew Michael S. Ong.

He spoke during Monday’s forum on  Innovation and the Creative Industries Ecosystem.

Special legislation is also needed to encourage registration, said Dimiter Gantchev, World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) deputy director for culture and creative industries sector.

“You need  legislative commitment,and   support from the government to have a strategy to protect the creative industry. This industry is very competitive and will really need legislation,” Gantchev said.

There  should also be a critical mass of creators to help define the strategy and underlying economic growth.

“There should be dialogues between government, industry and civil society for a well acceptable strategy, evidence produced and other analytical studies to encourage the players, a regular IP audit to check and monitor the different sectors, a defined organizational structure and a well defined set of delivery and evaluation mechanism linked to policy-making,” he said.

Based on their study of  countries with a  developed and patent-savvy creative industry, Gantchev said this sector contributes an average of 5.53 percent  of the countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and makes up  5.81 per cent   of total jobs.

In the United States, the creative industry contributes  11.12 percent of the  GDP.

The   Philippines has the most number of jobs in creative enterprises or 11.10 percent of total jobs in the country but this sector contributed only  4.92 percent to GDP.

This shows that many in the creative industry are not yet fully tapped.

“One tool to reap the rewards of the creative industries in the Philippines is copyrights which most local companies haven’t used yet,” Gantchev said.
This applies to music, artwork, books, animation and design.

According to Gantchev, the strong demand for  books, music and other forms of creativity is driven by growing Internet use which has changed consumer patterns.

Social markets will greatly define the industry but they are unpredictable,  said Jason Potts,  principal research fellow of ARC Centre of Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation in Brisbane Australia.

Potts said that to enter these markets, one must experiment.

A possible social market is the novelty bundling market for   festivals, trade fairs, conferences, and magazines. /With a report from Correspondent Rhea Ruth V. Rosell