The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of the Philippines has reiterated to inventors to patent their technology or at least have a "confidentiality agreement" before disclosing their technology to other people to ensure that their ideas would not be copied and that it would be protected by law.

"It's better that you have confidentiality agreement with whom you are disclosing the technology," IPO Bureau of Patents Director Epifanio Evasco said.

"Before commercialization, it is important to consider protecting (the technology)," he added.

This advice was agreed upon by one of the country's top scientists who is also a director at the University of the Philippines.

"There is a need to license or franchise the technology so it could be plowed back and you could improve on it," said Dr. Teresita Espino, director of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH) at the University of the Philippines-Los Baños (UPLB).

According to Evasco, intellectual property rights (IPR) will prevent competitors copying technologies or products, avoid wasteful investments in research and development (R & D) and marketing, and create and enhance corporate identity.

He added that it will also facilitate negotiations, franchising, increase the company's market value, enhace access to finance, open access to new markets, and avoid unnecessary litigation.

A patent is a statutory grant by the government in return for disclosure of an invention to the public. It gives the inventor a right for limited period of time, according to Evasco.

"The patent owner has exclusive rights to make, use sell, or import the patented product or process 20 years from filing date," he said.

According to Evasco, patentable inventions must be new, involve inventive steps, and must also be industrially applicable.

For biotechnology inventions, products must "consist or contain biological materials," Evasco said.

Patentable biotechnology products include cellular and non-cellular organisms and its uses, apparatus, as well as processes.

Aside from patents, different IPR include utility models, copyright and related rights, trademarks and service marks, geographic indicators, industrial designs, layout designs, and protection of undisclosed information.

Evasco, however, said mere discoveries are exempted from patentability "because it must have a human intervention," he said.

Other exemptions to patentability include plant varieties and animal breeds, those contrary to public order or morality, and the methods for treatment of human or animal body by surgery and or therapy and diagnostic methods and practices.

"It's the use of the product and not the method that is patentable," Evasco said.