Bandar Seri Begawan - With a well-established patent regulation and system in place, Brunei Darussalam can be a knowledge nation that can provide greater opportunity for local entrepreneurs to focus on international markets that will consequently build a second tier economy for the country.
Brunei's potential to be a smart cultured nation was highlighted yesterday by Stephen Anderson, a registered patent attorney in Australia and New Zealand, who is currently in Brunei to deliver a series of talks on raising awareness on the importance of patents to intellectual property.
With enormous experience in patent issues, Mr Anderson said, 'As a smart culture nation, Brunei can leverage on that knowledge base through the strategic use of intellectual property rights to protect their proprietary technology and investment. With a knowledge nation, it can generate opportunities and also encourage talented people and successful entrepreneurs to network together to help and mentor each other for mutual benefit. For example, one or two successful entrepreneurs can mentor students who have good ideas in converting those ideas into a successful business."
With the increas in successful local entrepreneurs, he said, "the country can benefit with second tier economy where young successful company based in Brunei can venture to the overseas market. The idea is to get people into private local enterprises where successful enterprises can also employ locals for the benefit of the country."
Mr Anderson will be opening an office named Anderson IP Services Sdn Bhd (Patent and Trade Mark Advocacy) on December 4, with assistance from Bee Guan Marketing, to help Bruneians facilitate the process of getting patent registration with the goal of eventually training motivated local young people to become patent professionals.
There are skills and art of drafting up a patent specification and to be a patent professional, a person needs to know matters on the legal side, as well as the technological, he said.
Touching on the benefits of registration of a patent, he said, "In patenting a process or product, entrepreneurs will have to look at not only the boundary of Brunei, but also overseas market. An effective patenting programme will give entrepreneurs an advantage over their competitor; it will also provide exclusive rights to control the market in a period of time, as well as the much needed information from the patent literature."
He further explained, "Patent literature can also help companies or individuals to understand their freedom of operation."
On how patent can help Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), he said, As more research work receives international recognition and is protected with appropriate IP rights, such as patents, UBD can receive more third party collaborations in areas where the UBD has the recognition and proprietary rights, especially from big corporations in collabarative and sponsored research programmes. With more intellectual property, it will also create licensing to explore opportunity.
He cited an example, saying, "A researcher in the university is publishing her findings in June next year, and if she were to publish without considering the intellectual property implications, she would not be able to enjoy the proprietary rights of her hard work and research."
A few weeks ago, Mr Anderson spoke with Dato Paduka Awg Hj Ali bin Hj Apong, Deputy Minister at the Prime Minister's Office and Chairman of BEDB, on conducting a series of workshop to raise awareness on patent, especially for UBD to try to help students to realise their potential to become entrepreneurs globally.
Today, Mr Anderson will be conducting a workshop at iCentre, from 9am onwards, on the topics of "Problem and Solution Approach to IP Capture", as well as on the importance of having a well thought out and prepared commercialisation strategy to run in parallel with IP capture.
--Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin
