Exporters demand world-class IP House in Pakistan: Irfan Iqbal Sheikh

• IPO has conducted a session with FPCCI in Karachi.
• He also highlighted the importance of TRIPS.
• FPCCI will celebrate Intellectual Property Day on April 26.

KARACHI: President Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, has demanded that the government must establish a world-class  and central intellectual property house for the business, industry and trade community of Pakistan to better protect the intellectual property rights (IPRs) of its R&D fraternity, manufacturers and exporters.

He also highlighted the importance of Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to penetrate deeper into EU, UK, Australian, Japanese, South Korean and North American export markets.

It is pertinent to note that Intellectual Property Organization (IPO) has conducted a consultative session with FPCCI at its head office in Karachi to apprise the business community of their services  and the mechanism to protect their IPRs.

The session was attended by the representatives of various sectors and industries; and, individual cases of various producers were also discussed.

Irfan Iqbal Sheikh explained that due to lack of an efficient, central database and registration mechanism, there are thousands of IP cases pending at any point in time in the country. There is no way that Pakistan can continue to suffer the way it has in the case of basmati rice due to lack of IPRs protection in international markets; and, as a matter of fact, Pakistani basmati rice products have been selling in other countries through third parties & rebranding in an unfair manner to our own farmers, he added.

Suleman Chawla, SVP FPCCI, informed that FPCCI will be celebrating Intellectual Property Day at its head office in Karachi on 26th April 2023 to create awareness in the business community and to put forward the collective demands and complaints of the business community vis-à-vis IPRs from platform of the apex body.

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Farrukh Amil, Chairman Intellectual Property Organization (IPO), apprised that more than 2,000 IP cases have been taken up in the past few months; and, IPO realizes the need for speedy resolution of cases. That is the reason we have had this high-profile session with the apex body, he added.