By Kris M. Crismundo
MANILA, Oct. 11 (PNA) — The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has committed to sustain its strong copyright management in order to maintain the country’s status in United States Trade Representative (USTR) and to avoid being in the piracy watch list again.
The IPOPHL, which is mandated to implement policies on intellectual property, said in a statement that it continues its effort to strengthen the copyright protection and awareness campaigns nationwide.
IPOPHL Director General Ricardo Blancaflor highlighted that these moves of providing adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights will continuously satisfy the USTR to sustain the Philippines’ status in the annual Special 301 Report which identifies trade barriers to US firms and products mainly due to intellectual property laws including copyrights, patent, and trademark issues in other countries.
“The Philippines, which was first placed on the Watch List in 1989 and considered to be having the potential of becoming a center of pirate optical media production in Asia in 2001, was removed from the Watch List in 2014 based on sustained actions that the Philippine government has undertaken to improve intellectual property rights protection,” said Blancaflor.
Aside from securing the unilaterally-granted trade preference, intensified copyright management can also protect jobs in the country as well as its contribution to the local economic growth.
IPOPHL cited a study of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that copyright-based industries in the Philippines share about 5.0 percent to the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the country and account for 11 percent of the country’s total employment.
These copyright industries include press and literature, music, theater and opera, motion picture and video, radio and television, photography, software and databases, visual and graphic arts, and advertising.
Meanwhile, in the previous interview, Blancaflor said intensified market monitoring and enforcement of National Committee on Intellectual Property Rights (NCIPR) — a government body composed of different agencies that can enforce operation to seize counterfeited goods that entered the local market — has confiscated forfeited goods amounting to Php6.24 billion only in the first quarter of the year.
This was near to the total seized fake goods in full-year 2013 at Php7.81 billion.
According to Blancaflor, the NCIPR has recorded its largest amount of confiscated products in 2012, which is worth P8.4 billion, with around one thousand operations including inspection, search warrant, and warrant of seizure and detention (WSD).
The NCIPR has continuously done its enforcement operations to eliminate the influx of fake goods in the local market.
NCIPR is composed of Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Bureau of Customs (BOC), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Optical Media Board (OMB), Philippine National Police (PNP), Department of Justice (DOJ), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Book Development Board (NBDB), Office of the Special Envoy for Transnational Crime (OSETC), National Telecommunication Commission (NTC), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), and IPOPHL.(PNA)