EU clears Philippines of priority label in counterfeit watchlist

January 28, 2020

 

With its extensive and sustained efforts to keep counterfeiting and piracy at bay, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has succeeded in weeding the country out of the priorities in a watchlist that ranks economies based on the level of concern and threat to the European Union's (EU) intellectual property right (IPR) holders. 

 

The European Commission’s biennial watchlist titled the "Report on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries" was released on January 8, 2020. 

 

The report attributed its decision to remove the Philippines' from Priority 3 category ― the least concerning of all three priorities, with Priority 1 economies posing the biggest threat― to the "very few complaints received from stakeholders and the increase in the relative importance of other countries for EU right holders."

 

"Due to the few complaints, IPR holders in EU only deemed it strategic to put the Philippines aside and give more importance in looking after other countries who have an increasing potential to let loose on counterfeiting and piracy activities," Officer-in-Charge Director General Teodoro C. Pascua said.

This is the first time the Philippines was delisted from any Priority category. Since 2015, the country had been a Priority 3, already a downgrade from its enlistment as Priority 2 in the years prior. 

 

“This European Commission report is one of the latest major indicators that manifests the effectivity of the work being done for the past years at IPOPHL and the National Committee on Intellectual Property Rights (NCIPR) which it vice-chairs. NCIPR officials and officers are committed to going after IPR violators, finding it a meaningful duty to protect the country from the sabotage counterfeiting and piracy brings to an economy, culture, and overall national progress,” Pascua said.

 

 

IPOPHL debunks EU report's claim of no improvement

 

While the development marks a win for the Philippines' reputation in its governance in deterring counterfeiting and piracy, the report said it will remain to closely monitor the IPR environment in the country as it noted that "the situation has not improved over the last years.” It went on to cite joint studies by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), specifically the “Mapping the Real Routes of Trade in Fake Goods" in 2017; "Why Do Countries Export Fakes?” in 2018; “Misuse of Small Parcels for Trade in Counterfeit Goods" in 2018; and “Trends in Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods” in 2019.

 

These reports identified the Philippines as among the provenance economies which flooded the EU with counterfeits in a number of product categories such as leather articles, handbags, pharmaceuticals, footwear, games, toys, and sports equipment. A provenance economy, in the context of counterfeit trade, is a source of a counterfeit good, without particularity on whether it is a producer or a point of transit.

 

IPOPHL would like to dispute the observation of no improvement, as well as the accuracy of the OECD-EUIPO reports cited in reflecting the piracy situation in the Philippines in recent years. 

 

"It should be noted that the first three reports used a single set of data as the two 2018 reports were merely iterations of the findings of the 2017 study as far as the Philippines is concerned. The data used even dates back to 2011 to 2013. Several actions on improving IPR enforcement have been made since then. Although the 2019 study aimed to recalibrate the findings with more updated data and an enhanced methodology, the findings were presented in ways that make them unsuitable for comparison; the first study assessed provenance economies on a per-sector basis and ranked them on their likelihood of being either a fake-goods producer or transit point for counterfeit trade while the latter ranked the likelihood of an economy in being a provenance economy overall,” Pascua said.

 

“Notwithstanding these differences, if one attempts to compare them, the 2017 and 2019 studies, one can even presume that the Philippines has improved as it slid to being 19th provenance economy for the period 2014-2016 from being 13th provenance economy as a producer ― the country was not identified as a likely transit point ― in 2011-2013,” Pascua added. 

 

“This said, IPOPHL disputes claims of no improvement over the last years. In fact, the previous watchlist report, released in 2018, even commended the country for efforts we have been amplifying since then, particularly the push to amend the Intellectual Property (IP) Code of 1998 which is now in Congress and awaiting filing as a bill; IPOPHL’s continuous effort to champion several IP initiatives in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations; and the initiation of creating a National IP Strategy which the Office has completed and launched in December 2019,” Pascua noted.

 

As for concerns on the lengthy court process raised in the 2018 report, the IPOPHL has stepped up to fast-track the decision-making for IPR cases by collaborating with the judiciary to revise the current Special Rules on IP Litigation, a move that has been in the works for months now. 

 

“However, we understand that the report monitored the situation only up to August 31, 2019, after which several advancements in the local IPR environment worthy of merit were not credited. We expect that once IPOPHL’s and NCIPR’s efforts in the last quarter of 2019 are factored in, including the manifold projects and programs we intend to take in the next few years, the European Commission will give a more positive evaluation of the Philippines in its next report,” Pascua added.