AN IP and commercialisation consultancy firm has offered to help medical experts register – for free – trademarks, patents, copyrights or industrial designs in Malaysia as they innovate ways to combat Covid-19 and restore the health of their patients.
Adipven (M) Sdn Bhd managing director Ramakrishna Damodharan placed the cost of each intellectual property (IP) application at between RM1,000 and RM20,000 and said the offer is open to all employees at government and private hospitals and clinics nationwide.
Calling it a community initiative, he said it was in response to the urgent call by various stakeholders for non-medical experts to join forces with medical experts to tap their ingenuity, brains and resources to combat the Covid-19 outbreak.
“As a sign of appreciation and incentive to those at healthcare centres protecting Malaysia from the contagion, all employees from various positions including senior management and medical professionals such as specialists, doctors, nurses, support staff and allied health professionals are eligible to apply.
“Adipven will work alongside them by helping them to register for trademarks, patents, copyrights or industrial designs in Malaysia,” he said. “This package is from now until the end of April. On a needs basis, it may be extended until the end of the pandemic.”
Based on the worrying pattern of occurrence of previous cases of coronaviruses in the past such as the SARS outbreak which killed around 800 worldwide in 2003 and the MERS outbreak in 2012 – with about 36% of those diagnosed with the disease dying – “another deadly pandemic may be forthcoming in the next decade or so.
“Therefore, seeing that time is not on our side, I urge the top minds in the medical field to not wait until the next outbreak but start planning for patent protection, which is more important now than ever,” said Ramakrishna, an IP practitioner with 20 years of experience in handling a myriad of IP cases for local and foreign clients.
Kuala Lumpur-based Adipven hopes to raise awareness that while the world scrambles to develop vaccines in treating patients with Covid-19, protection of intellectual property in the medical field in Malaysia needs to be put in place now for better preparedness against the next coronavirus outbreak.
The free services for IP applications are in four categories:
Patent – patent search, drafting, filing an application and prosecution in Malaysia for drugs (chemical structure), vaccination testing methods and applications, vaccine quality control and medical devices, machines and systems. The cost is about RM20,000.
Trademark – trademark search, filing and prosecution in Malaysia for names of hospitals and clinics, logos, etc. The cost is about RM3,000.
Copyright – filing copyright applications in Malaysia for articles, presentations, operating procedures, etc. The cost is about RM1,000.
Industrial design – filing an application and prosecution in Malaysia for industrial designs such as new shapes of medical devices. The cost is about RM3,000. – April 1, 2020
