The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) is pushing for amendments in key legislation concerning intellectual-property rights (IPR) protection and enforcement in the next five years.
IPOPHL Deputy Director General Allan B. Gepty presented the agency’s “IPR Action Plan 2017-2022” on Monday. The plan centers on the agency’s legislative agenda to strengthen the “legal infrastructure” in intellectual- property rights protection.
“We want to sustain the gains the IPOPHL has achieved in the last six years on IP enforcement. We’ve adopted an action plan in 2011-2016, with the end view of establishing a strong IP regime. It’s the same objective for [the new plan],” Gepty told reporters on the sidelines of the sixth Philippine Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Summit.
Among the gains noted by Gepty is the Philippines’s exclusion from the United States Trade Representative (USTR) 301 Watch List, an annual review of nations’ enforcement of intellectual-property rights, in 2014.
The country was first delisted in 2014, after almost two decades of being included in the watch list of the USTR.
The USTR’s Special 301 Report aims to push countries to better adhere to intellectual-property rights standards. Trade sanctions may be imposed by the US government on countries it has designated as a “priority foreign country” that has consistently committed IPR violations.
IPOPHL said it is eyeing the amendment of the Optical Media Act of 2003 and the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000.
The agency also wants Congress to hold landlords liable for commercial-scale counterfeiting.
In particular, Gepty said the agency is eyeing to penalize other forms of media under the Optical Media Act, which now only covers optical disks and magnetic media.
“Because of technology and evolution in information technology, there are a lot of media now that can be used in storing pirated material,” he said, but declined to name specific types of media that will be included.
IPOPHL said landlords who engage in trademark infringement should also be penalized.
“Right now, we have no law penalizing landlords enjoying the benefits of counterfeit activities except for copyright infringement, but there is none for trademark,” Gepty said.
As for the E-Commerce Act, IPOPHL said the amendments should allow government enforcers to detect IPR violations involving unauthorized copying via the use of the Internet and mobile phones.
“We need to amend the E-Commerce Act to cover other IPR-related violations. The Act has penal provisions on piracy, but there are a lot of business models coming out now with different modalities so we have to address that,” Gepty said.
The rollout of efforts to improve IPR protection in the Philippines would allow the country to boost its ranking in the World Intellectual Property Office’s (Wipo) Global Innovation Index. The country’s ranking rose by nine notches to 74th in the Wipo’s latest review.