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IPR violations cause significant revenue loss: OICCI survey

OICCI
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KARACHI: A majority of respondents in the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) survey, indicated that it takes 1 to 3 years to resolve a standard intellectual property rights (IPR) dispute.

The OICCI has announced the key findings of its latest IPR survey 2021 where 37 per cent of the respondents indicated that it takes 1 to 3 years to resolve a standard IPR dispute and 22 per cent stated that it takes more than 5 years.

The participants of the survey also expressed concern regarding the penalty on IPR violation being insignificant and not sufficient to act as a deterrent. Moreover, the IP Tribunals were not fully functional in all three major cities of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.

The IPR Survey 2021 conducted in the late 2021, reflects the assessment of the foreign investors on the state of intellectual property protection in Pakistan. Effective protection of IPR consisting of copyrights, patents and trademarks is critical for attracting and retaining foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country.

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

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OICCI members have asked the IPOP for support in strengthening 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 in improving the skills of law enforcement authorities (LEAs) to proactively stop the abuse of IPR.

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

The serious lack of awareness and appreciation about IPR, lengthy timelines for granting IP rights, long drawn judicial proceedings, inadequately trained staff at LEAs and low penalties prescribed under IPR laws for IPR violations, were some of the key concerns highlighted in the survey.

OICCI president Irfan Siddiqui while commenting on the survey results shared that, “foreign investors’ concerns on the effectiveness of IPR regime are supported by the loss of revenue which as a percentage of organisation’s three-year turnover ranges from 1 per cent to 30 per cent. This in turn is causing significant loss to the national exchequer as well.”

Concluding the survey results, chief executive officer and secretary general M Abdul Aleem expressed his concerns on the low level of attention by the key stakeholders being given to IPR.

He added that “More than two-third of the respondents feel that the issue does not fall amongst the top priorities of the law enforcement authorities (LEA), government, media and even the public.”

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He emphasised that IPR protection is a collective responsibility and called all the key stakeholders especially the media and government authorities for support in this regard.

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