The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHIL) honored cities and municipalities who had the highest number of intellectual property (IP) applications and approvals in 2023. The Special Awards were divided into categories, namely: Highly Urbanized Cities, Component Cities, 1st to 2nd Municipalities, 3rd to 4th Municipalities and 5th to 6th Municipalities.
In Southern Leyte, the municipality of San Juan, which had filing of 21 IPs, made the cut in the 5th to 6th municipalities category. Sharing the award in this category are: Pakil, Laguna which got the highest filing with 32 and Biliran, with 21.
For the Highly Urbanized Cities category, the top three reigning cities are Quezon City with IP filings and approved registrations reaching 8,864, followed by the City of Manila with 4,738; Makati City came in third with 4,493.
In the Component City category are Antipolo, Rizal; Meycauayan, Bulacan; and Bacoor, Cavite with 486, 292 and 260 filings and registrations, respectively.
For municipalities under the 1st and 2nd category, Cainta, Rizal topped IP honors with 380 filings; Argao, Cebu with 305; and Binalonan, Pangasinan with 279 in third. Under the 3rd to 4th class municipalities, Lamut, Ifugao got the top spot with 89 filings, followed by Pontevedra, Capiz with 75, and Palo, Leyte with 70.
IPOPHL Director General Rowel S. Barba said that “the inclusion of IP and innovation in the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index underlines the importance of local governments in harnessing the creative capital of their citizens to improve or sustain productivity.”
