HOW do I patent my copyrighted trademark? Ask this question to any Intellectual Property Office and they will laugh at you. As a developing inventor, author, artist, businessman or researcher it is normal for you to think on how to protect your work or secrets from modern day leeches who loves to suck on the work of others and profiting from it without breaking a sweat whether you like it or not.

Some examples of leeches are the ones who are copying without permission the marks and designs of famous brands and usually sell them at very low prices and the famous leeches who loves to download from the internet without checking the terms and conditions and using it as their own and gaining profit from it.

It is therefore important for creative individuals to have an idea about Intellectual Property (IP) and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Intellectual Property or “IP” is the creation or product of the human mind while “IPR” refers to the ownership of an idea or design by the person who came up with it. It gives a person certain exclusive rights to a distinct type of creative design, which means that nobody else can copy or reuse that creation without the owner or creator’s consent, they also indicate the intangible rights that own economic values.

The implementing agency who administers and implements these policies is the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines as comprised in the RA 8293. Applying at an earlier date at the moment of creation is important since the Philippine IP system follows the “first to file rule”.

These are the different classifications of IPR.

PATENTS

It is a grant issued by the government giving an inventor the exclusive right to exclude others from making, using, importing, and offering for sale the product of his invention. The term of protection is 20 years from filing date. Its basic classes are it must be a useful machine, a product that is marketable and a process on how the product was made.

It is stated however in Section 22 of RA 8293 that you cannot patent discoveries, scientific theories, mathematical methods, schemes, rules and methods of performing mental acts, games or business and programs for computer, methods for treatment of the human or animal body and plant varieties or animal breeds or essentially biological process for plant and animal production.

UTILITY MODEL

These are petty or little patents which is new and industrially applicable they are mostly a combination of inventions like the case of an eraser less pencil which is an invention and eraser which is another separate invention is merged together creating a new product which is a pencil with eraser The term of protection for these kinds of invention is 7 years from the date of filing and is not renewable.

TRADEMARK

These are the logos, taglines and other visible marks that are used by companies, agencies and enterprise and are usually accompanied by the sign “TM” or “®”. Like the face of Jollibe, the Double Arc logo of Mc Donalds which is commonly mistaken as letter “M” and the catchy “We’ve got it all for you” of SM which always gives us last song syndrome when we hear it from advertisements. The term of protection is 10 years from registration and is renewable. Its basic functions are it must Indicate origin and quality and for advertising functions.

COPYRIGHT

It exists at the moment of creation but for legal intentions to avoid plagiarism and piracy it is legally granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work. Copyright does not protect ideas or mere facts, it protects the way in which ideas are expressed.

Copyright provides Economic Rights which gives the authors the right to reproduce the work, translate the work into other languages, adapt the work (e.g. HBO adapting the Game of Thrones novel by George R.R. Martin), exhibit/perform the work in public, distribute the work, broadcast the work, communicate the work to the public and Moral Rights these are the rights which maintain a personal link between authors and their works, they include the right to be recognized as the author.

The works that are covered by copyright protection under section 172 of the IP code are, Books, Newspapers, Lectures, Sermons, Addresses, Letters, Musical compositions and Dramatico-musical Compositions, Drawings, paintings, sculptures, works of architecture, ornamental designs, Maps, plans, sketches, Audiovisual and cinematographic works, Pictorial Illustrations and advertisements, Computer programs/Applications and Other literary, scholarly, scientific & artistic works.