Officially launched in 2016, the Inventor Assistance Program aims to level the playing field for inventors who have great ideas but struggle to secure patents due to a lack of funds. The WIPO-led public-private partnership helps these inventors get professional support from patent experts who offer legal services at no cost to the inventors – a boost for individual innovators, as well as their countries’ economic development. This WIPO established the Inventor Assistance Program to level the playing field for under-resourced inventors in developing countries by pairing them with a specialist to help draft and prosecute their patent applications.
Volunteers provide free assistance before the inventor’s local patent office and in selected jurisdictions. The program operates in five countries today: Ecuador, Colombia, Morocco, the Philippines, and South Africa. For the inventors wishing to protect their invention at the international level, the IAP also provides support for the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) national and regional phase entry in the United States of America and in Europe. The program plans to expand to Japan in the near future.
Already, the IAP has helped 39 inventors. So far, five patents have been granted in Colombia. The covered inventions include a device that stabilizes vehicles on wet, muddy roads, specialized kitchen equipment to cook lasagna, a machine that helps the visually impaired distinguish coins, modular furniture and an automated car covering by inventor Ivan Rizo.
Source: WIPO
