Stopping piracy will continue to be tough unless Filipinos stop patronizing counterfeit products, Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines director general Rowel Barba said.
In an interview on Daily Tribune’s digital show Straight Talk, Barba recounted an instance when IPOPHL’s dialogue partners even laughed at the notion of stopping the local trade of fake goods.
“Is it even possible?” Barba recalled being asked when he revealed his plans to curb the sale of counterfeit products openly in the country.
The Philippines made it to the United States Trade Representative’s 2022 Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy List, which specifically cited the Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan City as a piracy hub.
IPOPHL, Barba admitted, has no police powers to confiscate counterfeit items, thus complaints filed by citizens are coursed through the police or the National Bureau of Investigation for action.
“The rightful owners of the specific creations that are faked should come forward to us so that we can file a complaint if their rights are violated,” he said.
He said the country aspires to be the next South Korea in having sophisticated systems, such as forensic centers, that can monitor materials pertaining to fake merchandise downloaded to computers and mobile phones.
Barba bared that most Filipinos do not know their intellectual property rights, thus IPOPHL has been conducting information-dissemination campaigns on how to stop the proliferation of fake goods.
He said the agency has been sealing agreements with international groups, such as the Motion Picture Association of the US and the Asia Video Industry Association, to combat film piracy, for example.
IPOPHL has also been connecting with the pharmaceutical security industry to stop the trade in fake drugs, he added.
IPOPHL and several stakeholders recently joined the Department of Trade and Industry’s Brown Bag Meetings to tackle pressing IP issues that could be addressed in the Philippine e-Commerce Roadmap 2023-2025 that is currently in the works.
Barba, during the meeting last week, gave an overview of the IP activities in the eight key industries of the creative economy, namely, Digital Marketing and Online Advertising; Gaming; Digital Art and Photography; Films, Television, and Broadcast Media; Audio Online Media; Press and other Online Literature.
He said some common online challenges of IP rights holders include the difficulty in stopping the spread of IP-infringing material and keeping track of online activities that illegally distribute their works.