A summit on intellectual property (IP) has been set to ensure effective IP enforcement and adjudication of cases.
The 4th Philippine Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Summit on 20 October at a hotel in Pasay City will also gather the country?s top local IP experts and some foreign luminaries.
The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), the lead organizer of the Summit, takes into consideration the importance of putting in place an effective IP enforcement and a just and efficient adjudication system in the country.
?We aim to make the IP system work better and faster for our IP right holders. The continuing push to improve IP enforcement and adjudication in the country is aligned with our bigger objective of having a demystified, democratized, and a development-oriented IP system,? said IPOPHL director-general Ricardo R. Blancaflor.
The summit has adopted the theme ?Strengthening Intellectual Property Enforcement and Adjudication in the 21st Century.?
Already, the IPOPHL has set in place policies and measures to make it easier for IP right owners to enforce their rights. These include the continuing capacity-building programs in the judiciary that are rolled out in partnership with government and private stakeholders such as the Philippine Judicial Academy (PHILJA) and the Supreme Court.
The seminars and workshops aim to enhance the skills of commercial court judges, prosecutors and investigators and clerk of courts in handling IP cases. There are already designated commercial courts for the speedy disposition of cases involving violations of IP rights.
At the IPOPHL, mechanisms for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) have already been established. The IPOPHL-assisted mediation and arbitration programs, which began in February 2011, have gained acceptance among private stakeholders as an alternative way to settle IP disputes.
Furthermore, the signing into law in 2013 of Republic Act No. 10372, or the Act Amending Certain Provisions of Republic Act No 8293 Otherwise Known as the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, has strengthened the IP enforcement framework.
The new law created the IPR Enforcement Office at the IPOPHL whose mandate is to assist in providing additional administrative recourse to rights holders in running after the infringers from sending notices, warnings, visits, filing of other administrative cases, and assistance in the application and implementation of search warrants, inspection orders issued by Optical Media Board and Mission Orders issued by the Bureau of Customs.
The summit will also see the recognition of the latest batch of IP Champions and the Induction of the 2nd Batch of IPOPHL IP Young Advocates.
The IP Champions are recognized for their notable contributions in improving the IPR protection environment in the country. The IP Young Advocates program of the IPOPHL seeks to introduce IP to selected high school students in the country as a way of involving the youth in the promotion and protection of IP.
