Multinational company Procter and Gamble and the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines agreed to work jointly towards measures to help business owners better protect their brands against intellectual property infringing activities.
Noting numerous complaints against counterfeit P&G products, mostly across online-selling platforms, P&G called for the implementation of more stringent and efficient measures to combat the problem.
“[We can start by] maybe organizing a meeting with the concerned local government units and authorities on a mutual ground on how they can purposely and proactively monitor the online space,” said P&G Asia-Pacific brand protection manager Laure Catoire.
IPOPHL welcomed the collaboration, while Bureau of Trademarks director Jesus Antonio Z. Ros pointed out that the fight against IP infringement in the digital space remains a significant challenge not only for the office, but for brand owners.
“We all know it’s very challenging indeed to solve this problem, but we will be glad to listen and, perhaps, adopt your resolutions to minimize, if not eradicate, these types of violations on trademarks and other intellectual property rights on the internet,” Ros said.
IPOPHL underscored ongoing efforts under the National Committee on Intellectual Property Rights—a 15-member interagency body in charge of strengthening the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in the country.
The agency said it established a takedown mechanism triggered once a report on online infringement is substantiated and verified. IPOPHL will request the online platforms to immediately take down the listing.
The European Commission released its Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List last year, in which Baclaran and Divisoria markets, the Greenhills Shopping Center and the Cartimar Shopping Center were flagged for “offering a wide range of counterfeit goods on retail and wholesale basis, in particular shoes, with some stalls allegedly also running online shops offering counterfeit goods”.