‘Intellectual property rights’ violations bleeding businesses’

KARACHI: Violations of intellectual property rights in Pakistan have been found to have a damaging impact on revenues, causing serious losses to businesses as regulatory regime remains toothless, a study revealed on Tuesday.

The latest Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Survey 2021, carried out by Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) late in that year, reflects the assessment of the foreign investors, on the state of intellectual property protection in Pakistan.

Overall, according to the poll, 37 percent of the respondents said it takes one to three years to resolve a standard IPR dispute, while for 22 percent that period was more than five years.

The penalty on IPR violation was insignificant and not sufficient enough to act as a deterrent, the survey quoted concerned respondents as saying and adding that the IP Tribunals were also not fully functional in all three major cities of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.

OICCI in its survey statement said effective protection of IPR comprising of Copyrights, Patents and Trademark was critical for attracting and retaining Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the country.

The foreign investors participating in the survey showed higher satisfaction (from 17 percent in 2020 to 37 percent in 2021) on Intellectual Property Organisation of Pakistan (IPOP), the IPR regulator in Pakistan, and have urged IPOP for taking a more leading role in ensuring the effective IPR regime in the country.

OICCI members also pleaded with IPOP to help strengthen IPR regime by automating and fast-tracking the process of registering IP, massively promoting awareness on the importance of IPR and its impact for business/investment, and put in efforts to improve skills of LEAs (Law Enforcement Agencies) to proactively stop the abuse of IPR.

Currently, all the OICCI members rely on their own resources for monitoring 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, according to the survey.

Serious lack of awareness and appreciation about IPR, lengthy timelines for granting IP rights, long-drawn judicial proceedings, inadequately trained law enforcers and soft penalties prescribed under IPR laws for IPR violations, were some of the key concerns, the survey highlighted.

Irfan Siddiqui, President OICCI, while commenting on the survey results said foreign investors’ concerns on the effectiveness of IPR regime were supported by the loss of revenue, which as a percentage of organisation’s three-year turnover ranged from one percent to 30 percent”.

“This in turn is causing significant loss to national exchequer as well,” Siddiqui added

Concluding the survey results, CEO/Secretary General OICCI, M Abdul Aleem raised alarms over the low level of attention paid by key stakeholders to IPR.

“More than two-third of the respondents feel the issue does not fall amongst the top priorities of the law enforcement authorities, government, media, and even the public,” Aleem added. He emphasised that IPR protection was a collective responsibility and called on all the stakeholders to do their bit to improve the situation.