Dr. (Mrs.) Iyabo Taiwo (Right) addressing participants at the one-day workshop.
The University’s Intellectual Property Technology Transfer Office (IPTTO) Coordinator, Dr. (Mrs.) Iyabo Taiwo, has urged members of the academic community to be innovative, make their inventions and ideas patent, but not without protecting them.
Addressing participants at a one-day workshop on Packaging Research and Development Results and Inventions for the Market, organized by IPTTO, Institute of Food Security, Environmental Resources and Agricultural Research (IFSERAR), she pointed out that the process of applying for patents is not cheap and it has to be renewed yearly afterwards, to protect the patent.
She added that patenting without commercializing amounted to a waste of money, describing patent as a right, granted under the Patent Law, to prevent others from selling, making or using another person’s invention for a term of 20 years, from the date of filing.
The Coordinator observed that it is very important to do a patentee search on a new research, in order to make sure the research has not being carried out before and to also ascertain whether the research will be beneficial to the economy.
“You have to carry out a prior research and check whether nobody else has made exactly that same patentee that you are applying for,” she stated.
The University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Olusola Bandele Oyewole, who was represented at the workshop by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development), Professor Felix Salako, acknowledged the efforts of IFSERAR in organizing the workshop and for creating awareness on intellectual property.
He further affirmed that the essence of the workshop was to be able to turn-out inventions and innovations into patent, as well as making them marketable for commercialization.
“It will be an additional source of revenue to the University and individuals and it will also place FUNAAB on the path of developing the country’s economy”, he noted.
Earlier, in his Welcome Address, the Director of IFSERAR, Professor Segun Osinowo, stated that a university is not judged, based on the number of its students but by its innovations and contributions to the economy.