GOVERNMENT auditors have voiced concern over the slow process of securing patents and copyrights for dozens of technologies developed by Filipino scientists at the Central Luzon State University (CLSU).
The Commission on Audit said some of these research and development outputs have the potential for commercialization and could generate income for CLSU.
In the 2022 audit of the state university released last May 25, it was revealed that there were only 14 out of 37 technologies or commodities that have secured protection applications based on the University Research Office database.
However, the audit team said there are many more technologies being churned out that have yet to be entered into the records of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Office.
“(T)he data of the other 68 matured technologies or commodities from eight other delivery units and 16 recently concluded externally funded research initiatives were yet to be gathered by the IPR Office. The IPR Office does not have an inventory and monitoring report of the matured technologies and commodities that were already commercialized in the market,” auditors said.
They noted that validation of the R&D activities of various projects was already completed but intellectual property registration remains pending.
“Applications for IPR protection, on the other hand, were pending. Despite the successful results of field and laboratory trials, some of the technology and commodities generated were either not commercialized and/or transferred for commercialization,” the team added.
Back on October 22, 2021, auditors said that a project titled “Development of Colloidal Gold Nanoparticles (AUNPS) Immune Assay for Rapid Detection of Bacterial Pathogens” has passed all field tests.
However, it turned out that funding for IPR protection application was not covered by the budget hence the application was not even filed.
“Accordingly, the “rapid test kit” generated from the project which is important in the early detection, monitoring, and /or prevention of related tilapia diseases needed by fisherfolks and government agencies was not commercialized,” the audit team revealed.
Likewise, a separate P20 million R&D project on swine flu also generated a technology as of October 2021 again without even an application for IPR protection.
Currently, the developed test kit intended to combat the spread of African Swine fever (ASF) remains unavailable despite its urgency.
The COA said the bottleneck in IP protection applications is caused by “inadequate implementation of the duties and functions of the CLSU IPR Office.”
It recommended that the state university should review the IPR policy and guidelines to speed up the process, ensure adequate monitoring of ongoing and completed research, and regular updating of the database to identify priorities.
The university management assured the COA that concerned research units have been notified to coordinate with the University Business Affairs Program (UBAP) regarding the commercialization and transfer of matured CLSU-developed technologies.
“The IPR Office has already secured a list of technologies generated, technologies with the potential for commercialization, technologies that were applied for patenting, and technologies that received patents and copyright,” the audit team noted.
