Malaysia launches IP marketplace

Inventors often face various challenges when it comes to commercializing their inventions, and one of the common issues is marketing - how do you raise awareness of your idea?

The Malaysian Intellectual Property Office (MyIPO) has recently launched a website where inventors can list their inventions for viewing by potential collaborators. However it appears that further development will be required for the website to be effective. 

At the time of writing there are only about 160 items listed and less than 10% are protected by a patent (most have registered copyright). In addition there is little information other than the title so it may be difficult for a prospective investor to make an informed decision as to whether collaboration would be useful.

The website could thus be improved by including an abstract of the idea, together with details of what the inventor is offering and what their expectations are from a potential investor.

In addition, MyIPO could open up the IP Registers (or connect them to the existing international databases) to allow patent specifications to be obtained without charging an official fee (like other countries), to avoid discouraging investors from finding out more.

Perhaps these improvements would then help encourage the collaboration sought.