IPOPHL eyes higher global innovation ranking 

Following the country’s higher ranking in the 2023 Global Innovation Index (GII), Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) Director General Rowel Barba said his office will further contribute to the improvement of the country’s ranking in the innovation report, according to a report by Philippine News Agency.

This is as the Marcos administration targets to be at the top one-third of the GII by 2028, which means the Philippines should climb to at least rank 44 out of 132 economies in the next five years.

On Wednesday, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the latest GII where the Philippines rose to 56th place from 59th place last year.

“The improvement of the Philippine innovation ranking is a welcome development. But we have to continue being dissatisfied - dissatisfied not just in our current posture in the global innovation map but also in the current way of things around us, whether products, solutions, systems, processes or practices. We need to develop among Filipinos a mindset that continuously innovates to challenge the norm until such a time that innovating becomes our norm,” Barba said in a statement Thursday.

He urged Filipinos to produce more knowledge assets that will impact the markets and society.

On the other hand, the IPOPHL chief said his office recognized the issue raised by WIPO Director General Daren Tang that investing in innovation can be challenging at this time of high inflation and interest rates as well as existing geopolitical tensions.

The GII noted that innovation finance through venture capital investments dropped by 40 percent in 2022 after booming in 2021, while international patent registration also posted its slowest rate of increase since 2009, with 280,000 applications last year.

To encourage Filipinos to invest in innovation despite the challenging backdrop, Barba said the IPOPHL will continue to innovate its systems and practices to make intellectual property processes more efficient and accessible to rights holders.

“We will continue to expand the reach of our services, development assistance and awareness campaigns so that more Filipinos across the regions could take advantage of and be part of our fast-improving innovation environment,” he said.