The Filipino Inventors Society

The Filipino Inventors Society (FIS) is a duly registered non-government organization of Filipino inventors who hold patents to their works in the Philippines or abroad. Its membership has been widened to accommodate professionals and entrepreneurs who espouse its cause to develop Philippine indigenous technology and innovations.

FIS was established in 1943 by founding fathers Teo Purungganan, Pastor Reyes-Torres, and Dalmacio Buenaventura in the heat of World War II during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. In the same year, Manuel G. Goyena was inaugurated as the first FIS President in the elections conducted at the Bureau of Science Building in the City of Manila (this historical building has been reduced to rubble in the midst of aerial bombings during the Battle of Manila in 1945). In 1953, 8 years after the Second World War, FIS was incorporated as a non-stock, non-profit organization.

In 1957, FIS hosted the first Philippine National Exhibition of Inventions. For the first time in history, local inventors and innovators from all over the Philippines had the chance to showcase their technologies. This laid the foundations for the Philippine government’s awareness about the importance of invention and technological development at the time. This burgeoning renaissance pioneered by the efforts of Filipino inventors comprising FIS led to the creation of the Philippine Inventors Commission (PIC) in 1964. PIC was a state-mandated institution that specialized in providing assistance and support to Filipino inventors, which would advocate the development of the nation’s technology and the fostering of scientific research. This all came to fruition through Republic Act No. 3850, or the “Philippine Inventors Incentives Act” under Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal’s regime.

FIS in cooperation with PIC organized the first National Inventors Week in 1967. This was a week-long observance wherein amateur and professional inventors throughout the country competed for glory in a national contest that exhibited their inventions and technologies. The National Inventors Week, or NIW, was a government-supported annual national event under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos’ Proclamation 187.

Heeding a petition by FIS, President Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 1423 in the year 1978, which amended the original Philippine Inventors Incentive Act of 1964, establishing an “Invention Guarantee Fund” appropriated from the National Treasury and the grants program by the then-active National Science Development Board (NSDB) which was deposited in the Development Bank of the Philippines to “guarantee the unsecured portion of industrial loans for the exploitation and manufacture of any patented Filipino invention, utility model or industrial design.” The Invention Guarantee Fund included grants for prototyping as well as research and development. PD 1423 also bestowed a five-year tax exemption starting from the date of the first sale in the manufacture and commercialization of inventors’ intellectual properties.

The Philippine Inventors Commission (PIC) was renamed into the Philippine Invention Development Institute (PIDI) in 1982.

Source: JGJPagsanghan posted May 26, 2021 https://www.fis.com.ph/