ISLAMABAD: The Intellectual Property Organization (IPO) Pakistan remains headless for past seven months as Ministry of Commerce (MoC) is yet to finalize recruitment of a new chairman of the organization.
Effective protection of IPR consisting of Copyrights, Patents and Trademark is critical for attracting and retaining Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the country.
While the overseas investors term the lack of government focus on protection of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) as a major cause of revenue loss, the top bureaucrats are least bothered about the IPO functioning.
As per Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Survey conducted by Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), the investors were facing multiple impediments regarding registration and resolution of the IPR-related cases in the country.
As per the survey overall, 37 percent of the respondents indicated that it takes one to three years to resolve a standard IPR dispute while 22 percent said that it takes more than five years’ time to get the dispute resolved.
Respondents also expressed concern regarding the penalty on IPR violation being insignificant and not sufficient to act as a deterrent. Moreover, the IP Tribunals were not fully functional in all three major cities of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
The OICCI IPR Survey 2021 conducted in late 2021 reflects the assessment of the foreign investors on the state of intellectual property protection in Pakistan.
The foreign investors participating in the survey showed higher satisfaction (from 17 percent in 2020 to 37 percent in 2021) on IPOP, the IPR regulator in Pakistan, and have urged the IPOP for taking a leading role in ensuring the effective IPR regime in the country.
OICCI members have also asked the IPOP for support in strengthening IPR regime by automating and fast-tracking the process of registering an IP, massively promoting awareness on the importance of IPR and its impact for business/investment, and in improving the skills of Law Enforcement Authorities (LEAs) to proactively stop the abuse of IPR.
Currently, all the OICCI members rely on their own resources for monitoring the threat of IPR violations.
However, there is a great desire for all the IP owners to work in partnership with the government authorities for a better IPR regime in Pakistan.
Serious lack of awareness and appreciation about IPR, lengthy timelines for granting IP rights, long drawn judicial proceedings, inadequately trained staff at LEAs and low penalties prescribed under IPR laws for IPR violations, were some of the key concerns highlighted in the survey.
Irfan Siddiqui, President OICCI, while commenting on the survey results, said that foreign investors’ concerns on the effectiveness of IPR regime are supported by the loss of revenue which as a percentage of organization’s three-year turnover ranges from one to 30 percent.
This in turn is causing significant loss to the national exchequer as well, he added.
According to Secretary General OICCI M Abdul Aleem, more than two-third (2/3rd) of the respondents of the survey feel that the issue does not fall among the top priorities of the LEAs, government, media and even the public.
He emphasized that IPR protection is a collective responsibility and called upon all the key stakeholders especially the media and government authorities for support in this regard.
