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A Patent is a grant issued by the government through the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IP Philippines). It is an exclusive right granted for a product, process or an improvement of a product or process which is new, inventive and useful. This exclusive right gives the inventor the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the product of his invention during the life of the patent.

A patent has a term of protection of twenty (20) years providing an inventor significant commercial gain. In return, the patent owner must share the full description of the invention. This information is made available to the public in the form of the Intellectual Property Official Gazette and can be utilized as basis for future research and will in turn promote innovation and development.

(Source: IPOPHL)

A Utility Model is a protection option, which is designed to protect innovations that are not sufficiently inventive to meet the inventive threshold required for standard patents application. It may be any useful machine, implement, tools, product, composition, process, improvement or part of the same, That is of practical utility, novelty and industrial applicability. A utility model is entitled to seven (7) years of protection from the date of filing, with no possibility of renewal.

(Source: IPOPHL)

An industrial design is the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of an article. The design may consist of three-dimensional features, such as the shape or surface of an article, or of two-dimensional features, such as patterns, lines or color. Industrial designs are applied to a wide variety of products of industry and handicraft: from technical and medical instruments to watches, jewelry, and other luxury items; from house wares and electrical appliances to vehicles ; from textile designs to leisure goods. To be protected under most national laws, an industrial design must be non-functional. This means that an industrial design is primarily of an aesthetic nature and any technical features of the article to which it is applied are not protected.

(Source: IPOPHL)

A trademark is a tool used that differentiates goods and services from each other. It is a very important marketing tool that makes the public identify goods and services. A trademark can be one word, a group of words, sign, symbol, logo, or a combination of any of these. Generally, a trademark refers to both trademark and service mark, although a service mark is used to identify those marks used for services only.

(Source: IPOPHL)

Copyright is the legal protection extended to the owner of the rights in an original work.

“Original work” refers to every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain. Among the literary and artistic works enumerated in the IP Code includes books and other writings, musical works, films, paintings and other works, and computer programs.

Works are protected by the sole fact of their creation, irrespective of their mode or form of expression, as well as their content, quality and purpose. Thus, it does not matter if, in the eyes of some critics, a certain work has little artistic value. So long as it has been independently created and has a minimum of creativity, the same enjoys copyright protection.

(Source: IPOPHL)