Philippine patent for Fish-I granted

Featured image: IN ACTION. Fish-I being used during UP MSI’s 2024 expedition to Apo Reef, Occidental Mindoro. 

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) recently granted the Philippine patent for Fish-I, a computerized system for performing semi-automated fish census.

Fish-I is a collaborative project invented by Dr. Prospero Naval from the UPD Department of Computer Science and UP MSI Director Dr. Laura David. Fish-I uses a simple underwater camera rig and AI to automate rapid reef fish assessment. 

Fish-I provides high-quality information on the population and species distribution measurements in a certain area. With the videos it captures, it can estimate fish size, density, and species biodiversity. The data makes it possible for non-experts and divers with minimal knowledge to efficiently build a fish census for monitoring and further assessment. 

The patent for the Fish-I technology, titled “Estimating fish size, population density, species distribution and biomass”, was officially granted on May 3, 2024 and will last until 2036. The patent was filed in 2016.

Fish-I has already been deployed in various dive locations and marine protected areas in Indonesia, Hawaii, and in more than 50 sites in the Philippines. Earlier this year, Fish-I was also patented in the United States, Mexico, and Indonesia.

To learn more about Fish-I, visit their official website: https://fishi.ph/