The Philippines has shown great improvement in the past years in terms of intellectual-property rights (IPR) protection, as highlighted by its removal from the United States watchlist of trading partners with grave IPR infringements. In addition to the enactment of Republic Act (RA) 10372, which brought amendments to the IP Code of the Philippines and which enhanced enforcement of IPR protection by granting enforcement powers to the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPhil) office, the Philippines has put in place a legislative framework that complies with minimum standards of IPR protection set by the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
With more and more Philippine companies investing abroad, with more Philippine business launching creative products internationally, the importance of IPR protection is recognized.
The Philippines is also party to international treaties and agreements on IPR, including the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization; the Paris Convention for the Protection of Individual Property; the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit for Microorganisms for Purposes of Patent Procedure; the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works; the International Convention for the Protection of Performers; the Producers of Phonographs and Broadcasting Organizations; the Patent Cooperation Treaty; and the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (Madrid Protocol). The Philippines has also recently been undertaking policy measures to ratify the Nice Agreement on the classification of goods and services in trade mark applications.
There are currently four types of courts in the Philippines that deal with cases related to IPR infringement, namely, the Special Commercial Courts for IP cases; the IPOPhil Quasi-Judicial Courts for cases under their jurisdiction, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) under the IPOPhil; and the Arbitration Courts by Philippine Dispute Resolution Center, which are attached to IPOPhil.
Despite the positive developments in IPR protection in the Philippines in the past years and the attempts of the Bureau of Customs, smuggling and the subsequent entry of counterfeit products into the market remain a significant concern for many companies. With regard to geographical indications (GIs) protection, while IPOPhil has moved to allow recognition and registration of GIs, there is still no legislative or executive framework to establish their protection.
The need for a strong IPR protection and enforcement framework becomes ever more relevant with the Philippines’s membership in the Asean Economic Community. The single market it creates undoubtedly brings substantial benefits to member-countries; however, due to the lack of a single regional IPR-protection regime to cover the Asean single market, it increases the pressure on member-states to safeguard IPR in their respective jurisdictions in order to limit the opportunities that the single market creates for the intra-Asean movement of counterfeit goods. Likewise, as the Philippines continues negotiations with the European Union (EU) for an EU-Philippines free-trade agreement, the Philippines’s willingness to improve protection of IPR and most especially create a policy framework to protect GIs, will be an important factor in how negotiations proceed. Additionally, the Philippines is producing IPR in the form of software development, game development and other creative services—these need IPR protection, too.
From an EU business perspective, IPR protection remains a concern in the Philippine market, as many European companies are innovator companies and suffer from substantial smuggling and the presence of counterfeit products in the Philippine market. In addition to the financial costs that the compromise of their IPR leads to, it is especially damaging for their brand images. The risks that counterfeits pose on consumer safety are also worrying, especially in sectors, such as pharmaceuticals.