Lighthouse IP Group Executives. (From Left) Josephine Vergara, HR and Finance Director-Cebu Office; Christa Deinum, Senior Vice President for Operations; Willem Geert Lagemaat, Chief Executive Officer; Patrick Van Dun, Managing Director Philippines; and Marcus Van Ameringen Vice President-North America.

Lighthouse IP Group eyes bright prospects for the intellectual property industry

CEBU, PHILIPPINES—The global intellectual property (IP) industry can brace for a strong business ahead despite the slowdown in the world’s super economies.

According to Lighthouse IP Group chief executive officer Willem Geert Lagemaat, efforts to sustain profitability by companies based in these struggling economies will push a strong demand for IP protection.

“Companies are forced to look at decreasing posts in production to maintain profitability, which means they look at outsourcing as one of the ways of dealing with them. However, if you outsource, one of the challenges that come up is how do you secure or maintain your intellectual property. So companies would need to protect and what we see from that is that the protection need is growing,” said Lagemaat during a press conference held last week at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel here in the Philippines.

He further explained that outsourcing requires a secured transfer and management of knowledge that can only be effectively achieved through IP protection.

“How do you transfer knowledge and make sure that the people in a given country learn and understand how to make your product? How do you make sure that what is being made for you in these countries is not being copied by somebody else?” said Lagemaat pointing that the challenges companies face would call for more IP and IP-related services.

He revealed that the company, which provides IP information, data, and translation services, now enjoys a growing client-base in Asia’s emerging markets.

“There is a strong need for IP protection in these emerging markets. We see a number of growing customers in Vietnam, Thailand, China, Japan, and Korea. We also see South America becoming more and more interesting,” said Lagemaat.

He also cited the Philippines as a promising market that is so far composed of western companies.

“We prefer to grow our client-base with local Filipino-owned businesses but awareness in IP remains a challenge for us here in the Philippines,” said Lagemaat.

Lighthouse Software Cebu, Inc. (LHSCI) hosted the first-ever formal press conference in a bid to promote IP in the country. It was also attended by Lighthouse IP Group senior vice president for operations Christa Deinum; vice president for North America Marcus Van Ameringen; managing director for the Philippines Patrick Van Dun; and LHSCI finance and human resource director Josephine Vergara.

Vergara, in her welcome address, described the event as a one-step forward to promote Lighthouse IP Group in the Philippines.

Moreover, Lagemaat stressed that the company is ready to provide any form of assistance concerning IP to companies anywhere in the world.

“We can provide a number of services for clients to understand what’s happening in the market and help them succeed,” concluded Lagemaat.