MANY Malaysian companies are not taking enough steps to unlock the value of their companies' most prized asset: intellectual property rights- Multimedia Development Corridor Sdn Bhd (MDeC) chief operating officer Ng Wan Peng said Malaysian companies can stand to make, if not billions, millions of ringgit if they know what was in store when they actually copyright their invention, innovations or ideas- "Anything can have an intellectual property (IP) rights, a character for an animation series, a design of a material and even a piece of software," she told the Business Times in an interview recently- Ng said these days many companies are aware of the importance of having their products and ideas "IP-ed" but there was still room for improvement- "In Malaysia, the rate of IP rights for monetisation is still at its infancy stage, unlike in the US where anything and everything is 'IP-ed' with more than 100,000 IPs issued on a yearly basis," she said- These figures were a far cry from the Malaysian numbers, which recorded only 1,945 IPs last year with many coming from the MSC-listed companies with MDeC- "We have grants, amounting to several hundreds of thousands of ringgit, to assist a company in getting their IPs registered in hopes that it will help ease the burden, which many companies have to bear in order to get their products "IP-ed"- "This year, we are going all out and we want the number of companies having their IPs registered with the government to increase from what we had registered last year- Which is why we have monetary assistance, expert advice and much more given to them in order to ease their experience in getting their products or ideas 'IP-ed'- Basically, we link them up to all the right people," she explained- Ng said MDeC was looking at identifying suitable companies which could IP their products and gain better revenue this year- She hopes the number will increase by leaps and bounds over time- "So far, we have assisted 500 companies under our wing- We have more than 2,000 MSC-status companies and the rest will be targeted by us soon for IPs registration-"...

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