World Intellectual Property Day: Spotlight on creating awareness to safeguard rights

Patents linked with greater economic growth.

ISLAMABAD:

Safeguarding intellectual property rights may not get much attention in the country the rest of the year, but experts came together at the National Library to educate students about the subject to mark World Intellectual Property Day on Friday.

Intellectual property should be treated as an asset that can be bought, sold, licensed, or given away and there are laws in place to enable owners, inventors and creators to protect their creations from unauthorised use.

The information and original expressions of creative individuals is known as intellectual property. The theme this year is “Creativity-The Next Generation”.

Bilal Ahsan,  an attorney at United Trademark and Patent Services (UTPS), said we must increase our sensitivities towards counterfeiting as a society. “The law provides a level-playing field and enforcement should act as a deterrent with stronger penalties.”

Branding Bees Chief Operating Officer Adnan Shahid said younger people cannot afford the cost of patenting their ideas, therefore different fee structures must be designed as we are a young country. “We need to honour their creative work so that they can grow and so can we.”

To conform with international trade practices, The Intellectual Property Organisation (IPO-Pakistan) was established in 2005 to safeguard the interests of creators, scientists, inventors and innovators and given legal cover in the form of IPO Act, 2012. IPO-Pakistan’s mandate is to curb counterfeiting and piracy with the support of law enforcement agencies, fair trade practices and increased coordination to wage a war against unfair trade.

Recognising patents as a key to economic growth, countries such as the US protect their inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, images, names and designs used in commerce. The World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects Report for 2002 confirmed the growing importance of intellectual property for today’s globalised economies, finding that “across the range of income levels, intellectual property rights are associated with greater trade and foreign direct investment flows, which in turn translate into faster rates of economic growth”.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2013.