Santos, Chazmin Melody D.

February 1, 2022

CBM 0016 – 10 Prof. Cing Daphnnie G. Maurillo

IP Rights in Businesses

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) recorded a total of 957, 620 business
enterprises operating for the year 2020 in the Philippines of which 99.51% are MSMEs and the
rest are large enterprises. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many of these businesses
have not survived and this caused businesses to go online. The rapid advancement in technology
has greatly helped businesses as it created a new opportunity for businesses to expand their
services online. It provides consumers with a new, easier, and more convenient transaction that
can be accessed with one click. Many small businesses have started to arise with the hope of
engaging and participating in the growing market and to prosper in the future. As the number of
businesses increases, the number of customers also increases causing the market to become more
competitive. The competition in the market is becoming more intense, business owners have to
find a way to maintain their connections and the loyalty of their customers. They have to
continuously invent, innovate and be creative in what to serve or provide the consumers that
others cannot.

With the increasing number of inventions and innovations, imitation, piracy, and fakes
are all over the market. To encourage more inventions and innovations from entrepreneurs and to
allow them to have control over their creations, here comes Intellectual Property Rights, a law of
collective rights. According to WIPO, Intellectual Property Rights play an important role in
protecting innovative products, increasing their visibility in the market, distinguishing your
business from its competitors, and helping in preventing the unintentional use of third-party
proprietary content or the loss of your own valuable information, innovations, or creative output.
IP rights are the law that governs the creations, wherein Intellectual Property covers creations of
the mind such as literary works, artistic pieces, and inventions. There are three main types of
Intellectual Property for businesses: Copyright, Patents, and Trademarks. These three will be
thoroughly discussed and explained in the following paragraphs.
 Ownership and copyright are often mistaken for each other. By intellectual creation,
according to Article 721 of Republic Act 386, (1) authors acquire ownership of literary,
dramatic, historical, legal, philosophical, scientific, or other works; (2) composers acquire
ownership of musical compositions; (3) painters, sculptors, or other artists acquire ownership of
the product of their art; and (4) scientists, technologists, or any other person acquires ownership
of their discovery or invention. (n). Ownership is described as the status of having complete legal
control over the creations, meanwhile, Copyright is the right by law to be the entity that
determines who has the authority to publish, copy, and disseminate a piece of writing, music,
photograph, or other work of authorship.

Do you often wonder why videos

are removed from some platforms? Or
why some videos are muted? This is
because the video or audio used is
copyright-protected. This shows that
videos and audios are some of the creative
works protected by copyright.

As the owner of the copyright, it grants one the right to reproduce and distribute copies of
the creation. It also entitles owners to authorize others to exercise any of these exclusive rights as
well. (Jaburg & Wilk, n. d.) Businesses such as publishing companies have the right to reproduce
and distribute copies of the literary work of their authors given that they have an agreement or a
contract. Copying creative and intellectual creations is deemed copyright infringement and is
penalized by Republic Act No. 8293, often known as the Intellectual Property Code of the
Philippines or IP Code.

How does Copyright work on businesses? As the company has its ownership or copyright
on a product or goods, none other than them may reproduce and sell the products protected by
the copyright. In other terms, as the sole owner of the copyright, you are entitled to earn the
profit & no other may earn money from selling your work. Therefore, copyrights can be utilized
to prevent others from using your company's original creative works, such as sales brochures,
advertising and promotional pieces, books, videos, songs, images, and website material, without
your permission.

A patent is an exclusive right awarded for an invention, which is a product or a method

that offers a new technical solution to a problem or provides a new way of doing something in
general. Technical information concerning the invention must be given to the public in a patent
application in order to get a patent. The main common types of patents are utility patents and
design patents. With utility patents covering the common types of inventions with a particular
function, design patents protect purely artistic or ornamental designs for manufactured items that
do not affect the function of the manufactured item.

In the year 2021, it was

released to the public that Apple has
filed a new patent that shows a
potential feature of the product. It is a
feature that would let only the owner
see the contents with special glasses.
"Privacy Eyewear" is an electronic
gadget device with the function that
can display "vision-corrected visual
outputs and standard graphical
outputs."

Companies may not develop inventions that can be signed under patents, but it does not
mean that patents only apply to complex physical or chemical processes or goods, or that they
are only beneficial to large enterprises. It can be acquired from any field of technology, from
safety pins to personal computers. Furthermore, patents do not only apply to major scientific
achievements, because the truth is patents are granted to inventions that are made with
improvements from the existing inventions. Specific legal provisions exist in several countries to
protect gradual advances. Utility models are a type of patent that lasts for a shorter period of time
and is often easier to obtain than patents.
 Utility patents are furtherly divided into five categories: a method, a machine, a
manufacture, a composition of matter, or an improvement of an existing idea. As for design
patents, some examples include ornamental designs on jewelry, autos, or furniture, as well as
packaging, fonts, and computer emojis. Some famous design patent objects include the
Coca-cola bottle which is originally known for its curvy bottle and the Statue of Liberty. (Kento,
W. 2019)

Trademarks are those that distinguish a business in the market, and in the market, it is
commonly referred to as “brand”; They can be a word, phrase, symbol, design, or combination of
these. It is vital to secure these commercial assets, as trademarks provide business owners with
the tools they need to prevent competitors from exploiting the reputation that their brand has
built up over time. Therefore, all business owners should take appropriate precautions to secure
and manage their trademarks.

As the rightful owner of the trademark, you can prevent others, particularly your
competitors, from using your trademark itself or a confusingly similar one. To protect the brand,
one must register it with the state or the government assigned to managing trademark
applications. More importantly, before you and your business introduce or adopt a brand, you
must ensure that no one owns and is currently commercing that particular trademark to avoid
conflicts that will result in the use of the trademark being stopped and being punished by the law,
costing you valuable time and potentially significant expense.

Over the years, Starbucks has filed several iconic trademarks. Among these are the Gold
Coast Blend and Dragon Drink. And, they even own the trademark registrations for “Venti” and
“Frappuccino”. (GERBEN, 2022). Other examples of proprietary brands listed by WIPO from
Jollibee Corporations are the following: “Jollibee” for their core fast-food business, “Greenwich”
for their pizza and pasta chain, and “Chowking” for their oriental food outlets. In addition to this,
Jollibee also owns more trademarks namely “Bee Happy”, “Yumburger”, “Chickenjoy” and
“Amazing Aloha” and has registered all of its logos.

From the year 2011 to the year 2020, an average of 21, 933 trademarks application are
recorded by WIPO. Based on the names mentioned above, “Jollibee” and “Starbucks”, are those
existing trademarks that one can feel the weight of the reputation those businesses hold. This
represents the importance of registering one’s trademarks; It protects the business’ brand identity,
and it gives the owner the exclusive rights to prevent others from using or exploiting the mark in
any way.

In the previous paragraphs, the three main types of Intellectual Property and how it
applies in businesses are discussed and explained. IPR grants the inventors or creators of a
property certain exclusive rights in order for them to profit commercially from their creative
work or reputation. Having ownership of the copyright, patent, and trademark has its benefits but
it also has its limitations and as the owner, you have to bear the responsibilities. Failure to protect
the property could lead to imitators quickly taking over, and because the imitators did not invest
in the development of that solution, that design, or in building that reputation, they will be
capable of offering the same unique proposition at a lower price, placing the original company
out of business.
References:

Chan Robles. (2021). Philippine Civil Law. Retrieved from

https://www.chanrobles.com/civilcodeofthephilippinesbook3.htm

DTI. (2020). 2020 MSME STATISTICS. Retrieved from

https://www.dti.gov.ph/resources/msme-statistics/

Gerbenlaw. (2022). Starbucks Trademarks. Retrieved from

https://www.gerbenlaw.com/trademarks/food-companies/starbucks/#

IPO. (2022). Trademark. Retrieved from https://www.ipophil.gov.ph/trademark/

Jaburg & Wilk. (2022). Why Register My Copyrights? The Benefits of Copyright
Registration. Retrieved from
http://www.jaburgwilk.com/news-publications/benefits-of-copyright-registration#

Kenton, W. (2019). Design Patent. Retrieved from

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/design-patent.asp#

[1] WIPO. (2022). Frequently Asked Questions: Patents. Retrieved from

https://www.wipo.int/patents/en/faq_patents.html

[2] WIPO. (2022). From Ice Cream Parlor to Fast Food Empire: Tony Tan Caktiong’s
Story. Retrieved from https://www.wipo.int/ipadvantage/en/details.jsp?id=2531#

[3] WIPO. (2022). Intellectual Property for Business. Retrieved from

https://www.wipo.int/sme/en/