On March 23 2010, the president of the Philippines signed into law Republic Act No 10055 known as the Philippine Technology Transfer Act of 2009. Published on April 23 2010, this law takes effect after 15 days. It provides the framework and support system for the ownership, management, use and commercialisation of intellectual property generated from government funded researches. This law was the brainchild of Estrella Alabastro of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and was inspired by the Bayh-Dole Act of the USA. She stated in the DOST Digest: "For the longest time, we rely mostly on breakthroughs from the outside, while our local technologies generated through public funds remain untapped or archived in laboratories around the country. Hence, this is a significant break for us to roll this out to the market and be availed of by the public." Some of the salient points of this law are:
- Ownership of intellectual property and intellectual property rights shall, in general, be vested in a research and development institute or institution (RDI) which shall be owned solely by Philippine citizens, or corporations or associations 60% of the capital of which is owned by such citizens. The nationality limitation is not applicable to RDI's covered by international bilateral or multilateral agreements.
- The exceptions to the ownership of the RDI of its IP are: (i) when the RDI voluntarily waives or assigns its ownership in favor of the government funding agency (GFA) for reasons of public interest, e.g. national security, nutrition, health or the development of vital sector (ii) failure to disclose potential IP rights to the GFA (iii) failure to initiate protection of potential IP rights (iii) when the RDI ceases to be a Filipino corporation.
- The GFA has responsibility for protecting government interest, monitoring the effectiveness of the RDI in securing IP protection and commercialization and ensuring adequate freedom to use the IP for further research.
- The RDI has the responsibility of identifying, protecting, managing and commercializing the IP generated.
- All revenues from the IP commercialisation of the government funded research shall accrue to the RDI unless there is a revenue sharing provision in the research funding agreement, provided that in no case shall the share of the GFA be greater than the share of the RDI.
- In meritorious cases, the RDI shall allow its researcher-employee to commercialize or pursue commercialisation of the IP, by creating, owning, controlling, or managing a company or spin-off firm undertaking commercialization, or accepting employment as an officer, employee or consultant in said spin-off firm.
The DOST with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) together with the participation of various stakeholders shall formulate the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) which shall be issued within 120 days from the effectivity of this law.
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| Editha R Hechanova |
Hechanova Bugay & Vilchez
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Philippines
Tel: +63 2 888 4293
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editharh@info.com.ph