The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) and the Korea Copyright Protection Agency (KCOPA) co-hosted the International Forum on Copyright Enforcement in December, 2023 that was attended by more than 70 government officials and content industry representatives. The forum was part of the IP Enforcement Summit held by IPOPHL and the National Committee on Intellectual Property Rights (NCIPR) of the Philippines. Attendees discussed ways to curb digital piracy, effective consumer messaging and the efficacy of site blocking, setting the stage for the launch of IPOPHL's site blocking program.
"The Voluntary Site Blocking Mechanism will cause significant disruption of access to pirated sites and protect the creativity that drives our economy. Our collective goal is to strike a balance between the rights of creators and the needs of consumers while fostering an environment that encourages the continued production of original and high-value content and respect of IP." said Director General Rowel Barba of IPOPHL.
Apart from such initiatives being taken by governments to secure IP rights in Asia, there are various aspects that organizations and individuals must also consider in this regard. Let us look into some of those.
Signing Non-disclosure and Confidentiality Agreements
China and many other South-East Asian countries are at a state to provide a legal infrastructure for protection of trade secrets and IP rights. The laws regarding these provide solutions in case the trade secrets are unlawfully disclosed. In this regard, third party business arrangements and contracts must always contain a non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements especially in case of SMEs in order to deal with trade secret infringement cases. This agreement will ensure that all protective measures have been taken to preserve the secrecy and IP right. An employer can be able to contractually bind employees to confidentiality and creations made by them in the course of business or during their work for the organization. Such clauses are able to protect the businesses’ existing and future IP and ensure that it maintains IP rights to an employee’s work product created for the company.
To give an example, in China and many other south-east Asian countries, trade secrets can only be granted protection as long as the secrecy is maintained. However, note that in Thailand, even though trade secrets are automatically protected under Thai law without registration (under specific criteria); registering with the Thai Department of Intellectual property can prove to be beneficial as it can be used as fundamental evidence in case of legal disputes.
Strategic Patent Applications
A patent that has been registered in Europe will have no automatic legal effect in any country of Asia. Even if the launch of a product has not yet been scheduled, it is important that European companies to apply for patents in China and other South-east Asian countries. This should be done for every innovation even if launch has been planned for different dates in different geographies. European companies must remember at all times that most countries operate an “absolute novelty” and ‘first-to-file’ or first come first serve IP registering system.
In this regard, companies can consider taking advantage of the protection stated under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in several countries by filing a single “international” patent application instead of filing several separate national applications.
Enforcing Rights
Entering new markets and securing IPRs implies that a company is prepared to uphold or protect rights in order to guarantee that trade targets are met and thus a budget for enforcing the authorization becomes a key. In most cases, when European companies distinguish encroachment, they ought to effectively uphold their rights. In case SMEs oversee to construct notoriety for 'being litigious' at that point companies will be less likely to encroach their rights within the future.
To give an example, multiple avenues of IP enforcement are available in both China and majority of countries in South-East Asia. In China, administrative action may be advisable over civil litigation or criminal prosecution. Administrative enforcement is filed before specialized administrations and is generally fast, cheap and reasonably efficient. Companies can obtain confiscation and/or destruction of the infringing goods as well as fines, but no damages are awarded.
At the same time, in certain South-East Asian nations like Malaysia and Thailand, criminal activities are more successful at finishing encroachment since legal activities are long and involve many unimportant fines. It is prudent to look for proficient exhortation, when attempting to make the foremost taken a toll successful IP authorization methodology.
With innovations happening in all sectors, protecting IP rights have become one of the important tasks for companies as well as governments in Asia today. Apart from the former, many other methods are being used by corporations and governments at large in order to counter all counterfeiting measures and secure all IP rights. Constant efforts are being made in order to bring stability and secure IP rights and hopefully, implementation of more innovative measures will be seen the years to come.