IPOPHL Shares with INTA Border-Control, Enforcement Strategies through 2025

November 23, 2020

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) detailed at the International Trademark Association's (INTA) 2020 Annual and Leadership Meeting its strategies to better enforce intellectual property (IP) rights in the years ahead. 

The INTA is a global association of brand owners and professionals dedicated to supporting trademarks and other IP assets. Titled "Asia Update: IP Rights Border Enforcement in ASEAN and Beyond," the webinar gathered heads of IP Offices in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). 

For his part, IPOPHL DG Rowel S. Barba touted IPOPHL's ongoing synergy with the Bureau of Customs (BOC), citing the recent partnership they forged to enhance border protection against smuggling and illicit trade of anti-social goods. 

"From this partnership, IPOPHL will have easier facilitation when requesting BOC to provide data on specific goods that enter Philippine borders, and will allow quick reference to the BOC documents which contains material details for the IEO to further its enforcement activities," Barba said. 

Barba also highlighted IPOPHL's role in regional enforcement as it chairs the ASEAN Network of IP Enforcement Experts (ANIEE), the lead group in implementing intellectual property rights enforcement initiatives under the economic bloc’s IP Rights Action Plan 2016-2025. 

"As Chair, we are moving to launch more ASEAN-wide enforcement actions, especially as we at ANIEE have already completed enforcement deliverables under the bloc’s previous IPR Action Plan. We believe that we should continue the work on enforcement and not rest on our achievement of the previous deliverables," Barba said. 

IPOPHL is also pushing for a collaborative partnership with the Customs Enforcement Compliance Working Group of the ASEAN to strengthen border controls across the region. However, further discussions are needed to identify specific areas of work. 

DG Barba also elaborated enforcement strategies under his BRIGHT 2020-2025 agenda, particularly in intercepting the counterfeit trade in the online space.  

The BRIGHT Agenda is an acronym that lay down IPOPHL’s priorities under Barba’s term which ends 2025.

"IPOPHL will soon issue its revised enforcement rules, which will strengthen our enforcement mandate in the area of e-commerce, allowing us to request  the take down and blocking of websites by rightful authorities," DG Barba said, adding IPOPHL has received a surge in complaints of counterfeiting and piracy during the pandemic when many activities were migrated online. 

Barba also noted the Office’s role in facilitating dialogue and the execution of a memorandum of understanding between e-commerce platforms and certain brands in the country, leading to the development of a notice-and-takedown protocol to be implemented soon by platforms. 

The IPOPHL chief also expressed hopes to see, during his term, the passage of needed laws to improve the Philippine enforcement environment, namely amendments to the 22-year-old IP Code of the Philippines and the Internet Transactions Act which will put online platforms accountable for the trade activities of their merchant-members. 

"Throughout our work, we will engage partners from relevant national agencies, local government units, private stakeholders, lawmakers, civic society organizations and the international community, to achieve faster enforcement mechanisms. A whole-of-nation approach is also instrumental in institutionalizing anti-counterfeiting policies across society and, in turn, creating an environment conducive to business growth," Barba added. ### (Janina Lim, Media Relations Officer)