IP Phils Finds a New Home at The Fort

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines or IP Phils recently moved to its new headquarters at the IP Center, Upper McKinley Road, McKinley Hill Town at the Fort, Taguig City.  Leaving its rather old and steadily-becoming cramped edifice along Jupiter Street in Bel-Air, Makati City, the transfer of IP Phils at the Fort definitely augurs well for the whole IP (Intellectual Property) community, practitioners and stakeholders as the Philippines positions itself as a leading guardian of intellectual property rights in the Asian region.

Already teeming with towering commercial and residential establishments not to mention self-sustaining live, work and play enclaves, the Fort, bar none, is really the ideal place for private and government offices that want to project itself as dynamic, modern and progressive for the forward-looking industries such as the IP and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Business Processing Outsourcing industries. It is no surprise at all that we find many leading players in these industries such as Hewlett Packard, Accenture, Thomson Reuters and now, IP Phils opting for bigger or main offices in Taguig City or as we commonly refer as The Fort instead of the once mighty Makati and Ayala Avenue (sooo-80s) address. Traffic and taxes are better or lighter too in Taguig City compared with Makati, but that is another story. Kudos and cheers to IP Phils Director-General Atty. Ricardo R. Blancaflor, Taguig Mayor Ma. Laarni ‘Lani’ Cayetano, Mr. Andrew Tan of Megaworld Properties for its various developments at The Fort and to the Ayalas as well for Bonifacio Global City and Market! Market!

As an IP practitioner, I can confirm that more and more people and companies nowadays are becoming curious, interested and ultimately aware of the value and significance of their IP rights and how can these rights like any other rights can be protected, capitalized and maximized to advance one’s business or undertaking.  In my next articles, I will discuss these IP or Intellectual Property rights – Trademarks, Patents, Designs and Copyrights – one after another along with trends and newsy happenings in the IP community, hence, the title of this column – Know Your Intellectual Property or simply KYIP.

Saturday Poker:    Incidentally, IP Phils has launched a photo contest for all its employees with the theme “Intellectual Property Center, Our New Home.”  Grand prize is a Canon 600D camera. We’ll be featuring the winning photo soon. The IP Phils new HQ aptly called the IP Center along Upper McKinley Road is right across the Venice Piazza Mall for the mall rat in all of us. For the geographically-challenged, Upper McKinley is the road leading to One World, Two World and Three World Square buildings housing top BPO offices at the Fort; entrance is via the Philippine Army HQ monument.

Microsoft Philippines Launches LRG Server

With the theme, “Helping Governments around the World Deliver More Effective and Responsive Service to their Citizens,” Microsoft recently introduced its Local & Regional Government (LRG) Server which will enable local and regional governments to deliver the best services and answer the needs of the people through Microsoft-based solutions.

The event aimed to deliver Microsoft’s Citizen Service Platform for the Philippine local government to streamline citizen access to resources and updated information. This platform offers flexible and custom solutions based on the Microsoft products familiar to the people like Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Virtualization, Silverlight, and Microsoft Unified Communications, among others.

“Microsoft partners with various governments to enable efficiency, engage citizens, and create opportunities for the people. We at Microsoft develop technologies and solutions to meet the security, reliability and regulatory needs of the governments. Through the LRG Server, we are helping governments realize their potential to further develop their operations and create greater impact among the people they serve,” said Seng Heng Chuah, Government Industry Director, Microsoft Asia Pacific.

Recognizing technology as a catalyst to help governments serve citizens more effectively, Microsoft and its partners are helping these entities accelerate modernization through a flexible set of solutions while also helping reduce energy consumption and minimize environmental impact. Through its proven products, citizen-focused programs and its global partner ecosystem, Microsoft empowers governments to expand social, environmental, and economic opportunities through security-enhanced technology solutions.

“Microsoft resources have been part of the development foundation of the city government. Our existing IT infrastructure includes Microsoft driven servers, database engines, network security and even workstation operating systems and office applications. This year, Quezon City moves one step towards the goal of participative governance where citizens interact in ensuring services, transparency and the development of the city,” said Herbert Bautista, Mayor, Quezon City.

“This year we partnered with Microsoft to study and develop a system where this interactivity and partnership can be achieved. Microsoft responded by piloting the Quezon City Citizen Service Platform. The Quezon City and Microsoft partnership has begun and continues to be a beneficial relationship for our citizens,” Bautista added.

Through well-planned, secure and efficient innovations, Microsoft helps lower the cost of government administration while providing government employees new ways to deliver their best work in the most efficient way through their PCs, smartphones, browsers or through the cloud.

Andrew Hodges, Director for Local and Regional Government, Microsoft APAC shared how the LRG Server can change a government’s citizen engagement. “With emerging communities and markets like the Philippines, our LRG solutions can transform the government into an eGovernment system that efficiently utilizes information technology in delivering its services to the citizens,” imparted Hodges.

Hodges further gave an overview of the current technologies that can help governments optimize their data centers, desktops and line of business applications. He shared his insights on how utilizing IT can help guide the governments to effectively deliver the best services deemed important and necessary.

“We will continuously work with the government to deliver the best solutions to transform nations into innovation-based economies. Moreover, we not only aim to equip local and regional governments with the abilities to serve better but to give voice to the people as they are provided an avenue to share their opinions or process their applications online,” ended Seng Heng.

Present during the event were Jeff Paine, Partner Director, Public Sector, Microsoft APAC; Steve Helvie, Sr., Dynamics CRM Software & Services Manager, Microsoft APAC; Lucinda Hodges, Spenta; Carlos Sevilla, Softrigger; Tim Diaz, ITVC; and Ma. Celeste Dy-Donato, Geodata Systems Technologies, Inc.