Making Innovation as Highest Priority in our Education System

Minister of Higher Education

Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia

(Pendidikan Tinggi)

No. 2, Menara 2,

Jalan P5/6, Presint 5,

62200 Putrajaya, Malaysia

Vice Chancellors of Universities,

16 Feb 2019

Appeal in Making Innovation as Highest Priority in our Education System

Malaysia is a developing country which means that we are still not rich enough to contribute to humanity by ourself. Our education system should cater to the needs of our country Malaysia instead of the global needs of making industries rich, industries that are not controlled by Malaysia. This is what Malaysian Universities are doing by making too excessive emphasis on Journal Publications.

Although our policians and educationists shout about the need for innovation in order to be developed, they value journal publications more than patents. This came about because the most famous University Indexing systems the THE Word University Rankings, QS World University Rankings, Webometrics, and MYRA are all based mostly on Journal Publications, with very little emphasis on patents.

For example, as explained in http://research.ukm.my/malaysia-research-assessment-instrumen-myra/, MYRA only puts 10% on innovation while putting 30% on research output and an additional 25% on research staff, i.e. those staff that engage mostly in research such as those holding PhD degrees, that are judged mostly on their research skills, not on innovative skills, i.e. design skills which are vital for producing patents. Another 15% on producing post graduates that are mostly based on journal publications, i.e. mostly research. Therefore the total emphasis is 70% on research leading to journal publications.

Actually there is an indexing method that judges innovation among universities. This is the Top 100 Innovative Universities (https://www.reuters.com/innovative-universities-2018/methodology). In this index, journal publication only accounts for 10% of the total mark in the ranking, and only publications, not citations. Among the patent ranking, just total number of filings in WIPO are counted for 10%. Patents do not need to be granted although, % of granted patents are also given a separate 10% marks.

Although Malaysian universities publish patents, most are filed in MYIPO but depending on the patent, it may not make sense when the product is better sold in developed countries that will use the proposed product. Although, in my opinion, filing in WIPO is useless because it incurs extra costs without any extra protection or better patent granting chance. However if you look at the Asia Pacifics ranking (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asiapac-reuters-ranking-innovative-un/asia-pacifics-most-innovative-universities-2018-idUSKCN1J02SP), there are 2 from Singapore, which shows how much Singapore invests in innovation by filing patents in WIPO instead of just Singapore Patent Office. Coincidentally, these two are also among the top academic university rankings in the world. This is not a coincidence.

Research work that lead to patents can also be published as journals because they are also research output. The nature of the research is more application specific instead of just fundamental research. There are few of these types of research. Probably, because they require special skills and extra equipment, but this is what Malaysia need in order to develop as a progressive nation. We must invest more research that can contribute to patents instead of novel ideas. Novel ideas are also some forms of innovation, but Malaysia cannot afford to contribute in this type of innovation, as a developing nation. Malaysia badly needs to get more involved in patent resulting research. WIPO helps in publicising the research but it does not grant patents. This is the role that MYIPO should play.

Unfortunately, MYIPO has failed in this respect. It took more than 5 years to give a comment, and when the comment came, it was so stupid instead of constructive comments as required by normal patent filing procedure. USPTO guidelines state that patent examiners must recommend changes that will make the patent granted. MYIPO, instead, make such silly comment as certifying that a patent that uses only one motor is equivalent to two other patents that use 2 motors. And these patents which are cited by the patent examiners are not additonal researched patents, but patents that were already found by the inventor in the original filing. Even after more than 3 months, there is no feedback on these stupid conclusions from the patent examiners.

The whole university community must force MYIPO to give priority to local inventions and give the benefit of the doubt to local inventors instead of discriminating against them and give stupid feedback that do not make any sense at all.

Yours sincerely,

Saya yang menjalankan amanah.

Assoc. Prof. Ir. Hj.Othman bin Hj. Ahmad

Universiti Malaysia Sabah