Published on: Friday, February 05, 2010 |
Kuala Lumpur: The commercialisation of intellectual property in Malaysia is still at a low level, in which the value of products from research and development (R&D) carried out is only 3.4 per cent of the total fund allocated.
In stating this Thursday, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili said under the Ninth Malaysia Plan, his ministry managed an R&D fund totalling RM27 million, comprising the innofund, science fund and technofund portfolios.
Ongkili said in order to intensify the commercialisation efforts, the government has drawn up a policy for R&D fund recipients to own the right to the intellectual property they produced.
Under the policy, the government also provided incentives up to RM15,500 for research which resulted in producing patents and those involved will also get 80 per cent royalty of the revenue derived from the commercialisation process, he said.
The Minister said this in his speech to officiate Malaysia Technology Expo 2010. The text of his speech was read by the ministry's senior division secretary (planning), Mohamad Batri.
Ongkili said 270 patents were registered with MyIPO last year and one of his ministry's key performance indicators (KPIs) was to increase the total number of patents by 10 per cent this year.
"The number of patents has to be increased if we want to achieve our objective of becoming a high-income nation. The government believes that with the existing policy, the commercialisation rate can be raised," he said.
Malaysia Technology Expo, now in its ninth year and the first event under the Innovative Malaysia 2010 programme, has managed to attract more international participation compared to previous years, Ongkili said.
"This year, we have 55 participants from Croatia, South Korea, Poland, Singapore and Spain with about 500 participants overall," he said.
The Ministry, he added, has lined up about 200 events and activities throughout the year under the Innovative Malaysia 2010 programme. - Bernama
