MyIPO Calls For More IP Owners In The Country

KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 (Bernama) -- Intellectual Property Corp of Malaysia (MyIPO), whose role is to monitor the development of intellectual property (IP) in the country, is encouraging more people to become IP owners rather than just users.

Source from (Bernama): http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v7/bu/newsbusiness.php?id=932728
Published: March 08, 2013

MyIPO director-general Datuk Azizan Mohamad Sidin said this is in line with the government's initiatives in pushing for more innovation as one of the drivers of the local economy.

To encourage that, he said the agency has been working closely and constantly with the local universities where most of the research and development (R&D) activities are carried out.

"The government has allocated a big sum of money to promote R&D. We want to turn our society from an IP user to an IP owner (so) in other words, MyIPO has been working together with universities on how best we can assist and facilitate them in speeding up IP registration," he told Bernama in an interview recently.

In fact, MyIPO has organised several roundtable sessions with universities to understand their problems relating to IP applications and to facilitate them during the registration process, he said.

From 2007 to 2012, a total of 186,505 IP registrations were issued.

Apart from universities, MyIPO has been working hard in creating awareness on the importance of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) among companies as well as the general public.

He said the growth in IP applications over the years has been encouraging, a reflection of increasing public awareness on the importance of IPR in their daily life.

"Last year, MyIPO received 40,992 IP applications, an increase of 10 per cent as compared to 2011 of 37,270 applications. Of that, 39 per cent of the applications were filed by Malaysians," he said.

Azizan said consumers are more intelligent in choosing what is best for them and are more inclined towards originality and quality of the product.

"Thus, when they opt to choose for original or genuine products, it is a sign that shows that they have respect for IP rights where the product belongs to the registered owner," he said.

He said the agency's goal is to create a community that values IP as a valuable economic asset and respects the rights of IP owners.

Awareness programmes in the pipeline include the launch of the IP mascot, IP Youth Camp, IP on Air programmes where successful SMEs share their experiences, and expanding IP awareness through social media.

For the past few years, MyIPO has achieved a lot including facilitating the shortening of the normal pendency period of processing for patents and trade mark applications from 38 months to 26 months and from 18 months to 12 months respectively.

The agency also introduced the IP Online System in February 2011, which provides a secure web-based filing system for patent, trade mark, industrial design and geographical indication.

-- BERNAMA