Government efforts to educate people on the virtue of having a healthy intellectual property rights environment is slowly but steadily gaining support from stakeholders and companies in the Philippines.
A report crafted by the Geneva Network including the local group Minimal Government Thinkers and partner think tanks in the ASEAN—Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Malaysia), Paramadina Public Policy Institute (Indonesia), Siam Intelligence Unit (Thailand) and Viet Nam Economic Policy Research Institute—sought to inform the different economies in the region of the issues in IPR frameworks.
The report titled “The importance of Intellectual Property Rights for progress: A reform agenda for ASEAN countries” suggests that the move from basic manufacturing and export of commodities to innovation and higher-value, knowledge-based goods and services will allow the Philippines and its neighbors in the ASEAN to grow faster and sustain such growth, attract more investments and create more jobs.
However, these countries must further strengthen the protection and enforcement of IPR that include patents, copyright, trademark, trade secrets, and regulatory data protection.
Geneva Network executive director Philip Stevens, who was formerly affiliated with the World Intellectual Property Organization, said that “foreign investors bring in valuable capital, knowledge, technology and technical capacity that may be missing locally, but need stability and predictability in government policy.”
Local investors also want the same stability and strong IPR to help them develop new goods and services and enter into cross-border alliances and partnerships.
The report noted that ASEAN countries are well-placed to move up the value-chain and become more innovative, thanks to their strong human resources and existing capabilities. But more needs to be done to reform their IPR systems to the highest global standards, it said.
In order to build upon these considerable strengths and accelerate transition towards more innovative, knowledge-based economies, ASEAN governments will have to reforms will have to reform their IPR systems to the highest global standards.
According to international comparative indices the strength, scope and efficiency of IP framework in the Philippines including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are still way below the highest global standards.
The report suggested reforms that may help ASEAN countries improve their IPR platforms in the areas of patents, copyright, trademarks, trade secrets and regulatory data protection.
Patents are central to the business models of the highest-value industrial sectors like the life sciences, semiconductors, manufacturing of electronic equipment and appliances, and natural gas extraction.
ASEAN countries need to address delays in examining patents, which eats into the twenty-year term of a patent.
For example, the Philippines and Indonesia have created uncertainty with their patent systems by making it more difficult to secure patents for a range of important innovations.
In addition, ASEAN countries should avoid issuance of compulsory licenses for medicine patents, because it injects major uncertainty into the IPR framework. In the ASEAN, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia have been quite notorious in issuing compulsory licenses, creating a great uncertainty within their respective IPR frameworks.
While crucial to ASEAN’S growing creative and ICT industries, copyright infringement is widespread, particularly online.
Brands are routinely infringed throughout ASEAN through the production of counterfeit products in consumer goods, semi-conductors and electronics, spare parts, chemicals, IT goods, luxury items, pharmaceuticals and food and drink.
Many countries have recently strengthened trademark laws, but legal and procedural obstacles to secure trademark rights should be addressed, and Customs officials should have the power to act against infringing goods in transit.