International Experts Express Hopes & Fears on World IP Day

The comments have varied between those who believe that the situation is satisfying and those who said it is still far beyond being acceptable.

“World IP Day celebrates creativity and innovation which provides everyone improvements in their standard of living such as creating medicines, better methods to communicate, and various forms of entertainment,” said Counterfeit Intelligence Analyst at Gieschen Consultancy Glen Gieschen.

Headquartered in Alberta, Canada, Gieschen Consultancy provides counterfeit intelligence analysis for brand protection, brand enforcement and security research. Providing intelligence and knowledge behind the criminal, civil, and ethical problems surrounding counterfeiting and piracy issues, clients are more effective in developing strategies to counter this growing threat.

The analyst believes that the current system designed to protect intellectual property has become ineffective in many regions and has created an underground economy which steals ideas and creativity without compensating the inventors.

“This is the world of counterfeiting and piracy which, in the past year, has funded terrorism, organized crime, made criminals of ordinary people and has been linked to drug trafficking, fraud, assaults, murder and nearly every major type of crime.”

Gieschen noted that “In 2005, more than US$1.54 billion in seizures and losses were traced to this activity from only 3,700 incidents worldwide. This is a small percentage of estimated losses but revealed startling evidence of a growing global problem. This growth is the results of a number of factors which include: a) increased marketing and distribution through the Internet b) increased consumer demand through discount sales channels such as flea markets, car boot sales, and street vendors c) inability of consumers to verify the authenticity of items, and d) increased criminal presence in the manufacturing, distribution and selling of counterfeit and pirated goods due to high margins and low penalties,” he elaborated that until better strategies are developed to counter this activity, intellectual property will remain threatened.

Meanwhile, Resident Scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), which is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy "think tank" based in Lewisville, Texas and founded in 1987 by Congressman Dick Armey to research, develop and promote innovative and non-partisan solutions to today's public policy problems, Merrill Matthews, tackled the impact of IP protection on the developing countries.

"People critical of intellectual property rights often claim those rights hurt people in developing nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Developing nations are filled with artists, authors, scientists and innovative companies that face real threats from counterfeiting and piracy.” Matthews stated that those countries that ensure their intellectual property is protected open the door for economic growth and say to the "Creative Class," come to our country where we respect your talents and products.

Still in the developing countries, the Executive Manager of the Palestinian National Internet Naming Authority (PNINA) Marwan Radwan comments: “In Palestine, there is a draft legislation on Intellectual Property Rights under discussion and will be discussed by the Palestinian Legislative Council. The various stakeholders of the Palestinian community will take the necessary time to elaborate appropriate laws for implementation when Palestine accedes to the WTO.”

Intellectual property rights were elaborated in the registration policy of the .PS domain as part of the digital brand protection procedures. Several articles in the .PS registration policy were mentioned to ensure that ‘The domain name can’t be a registered local or international trademark, registered mark, service mark or a well-known company name or its abbreviation, unless the registrant is the owner of this trademark, service mark or company, in this case, a proof of ownership or legal rights to the name may be required. Article 3.9.4. In addition, the name should not interfere with the rights of a third party. (Article 3.9.5.).

“PNINA considers the local and international trademarks as a very promising domain name market sector that it is approaching directly or through its chain of certified registrars. PNINA certified 10 of the major local and international digital brand managers as certified registrars for the .PS. Local and international brand names and trademarks constitute about 30% of total domains registered under the .PS so far. PNINA will continue to target this market sector in order to secure the maximum number of trademarks and brand names to protect their intellectual properties under the .PS domain space,” Radwan concluded.

Meanwhile, the IP protection situation in Europe seems to be very much promising.

“I believe Europe already has a fairly high standard of IPR protection, and it's a daily challenge to ensure that our IPR system maintains a balance and doesn't drift toward the American approach,” Anti-software Patent Campaigner Florian Mueller, who founded the NoSoftwarePatents.com website, said.

“With respect to patent law, I am worried that its excesses run counter to the notion of intellectual property: if inadvertent infringement becomes the rule and not the exception in certain areas such as information technology, the law turns against the innovators,” he noted.

Source: Ag IP News