Each year, World Intellectual Property Organisation and its member states celebrate the World Intellectual Property Day on 26th April. Its aim is to raise awareness of the role of intellectual property in our daily life. It provides an opportunity for people of all nations to reflect on importance of creativity and innovation in building a better world and offers an opportunity to promote, inform and teach the importance of intellectual property as a tool for economic, social and cultural development.
Like rest of the world, Intellectual Property Rights Day was observed in Pakistan on 26 April. The theme of the Day this year was "Designing the Future" which signifies the role of design in the market place in society and in shaping the innovations of the future. Innovations in any system have, historically, served as new life links to the vitality and effectiveness of the same. The main stimulus behind any innovation is, always, the pressing needs which are to be translated through innovative techniques.
In this era of globalisation and competitiveness, any organisation cannot be put into play without adopting global characters ie spreading the area of activity and interaction across different shapes of human and societal development. Protection of Intellectual Property Rights provides the necessary enabling environment for this purpose. Infringement of Intellectual Property is a theft and weak enforcement of IP rights becomes a big hurdle to innovation and creativity. This opportunity is, therefore, being availed to emphasise the role of the Customs in enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights.
Customs performs an essential function in the fiscal area. But as the proportion of import duties fall, its resolve of protecting society and ensuring compliance with trade rules, and its role in achieving a fair and equitable international market is assuming greater significance. Since the Customs Administration has its presence at land, sea and air frontiers of a country, it is the obvious choice as the main government agency to protect country's economic frontiers. As such, a Customs officer has to confront a broad range of border-related offences, which include the trafficking of illicit drugs, endangered species, nuclear and hazardous goods and counterfeit products contravening the Intellectual Property Rights legislation.
The purpose of Customs Law in Pakistan is also to collect revenue by levy and duties and to provide help for other allied matters. In order to attain these objectives, Customs officers in Pakistan are not only empowered under the Customs Act itself, but are also authorised to implement other allied laws, regulations, rules, international treaties, agreements and conventions which lay down restrictions or prohibitions in relation to importation or exportation of certain goods, including IPR laws of Pakistan.
Generally, the public perception of IPR offences is limited to fake items of clothing, watches, perfumes, cosmetics, toys, and computer CDs etc. While these contraventions can be extremely damaging to individual companies, and in turn to national economies, the actual range of counterfeit products being imported or exported pose a much greater health and safety risk to the general public. For instance, pharmaceutical products and life-saving drugs, manufactured with substandard constituents, unsafe machinery parts and aircraft spares, or computer processors, where the operating speed is artificially increased, making the product more likely to break down under pressure. Just imagine how hazardous a counterfeit product can be, if a fake computer part is installed as a key control component in a transatlantic jet airliner.
Customs, therefore, have to play a very crucial role. They are responsible for protecting the society against intellectual property rights violations at borders. The loss of revenue to legitimate business and economies, on the one hand, is linked with the need to protect the public from dangerous and hazardous goods. On the other hand, it is a vital function of Customs that controls are applied to avoid creation of barriers to legitimate trade.
Keeping in view the importance of international trade for the national economy, Customs have to respond positively and quickly to the legitimate needs of business. Successful international trade relies upon efficient movement of genuine goods, better business planning and ultimately increased profitability. In the present day business, the goods are often required to be moved on a "just in time" basis. So at the Customs frontiers, simplified clearance procedures with less documentation but greater automation are needed. The following core principles are required to be adhered by a modern Customs administration:
--- Standard, simplified procedures
--- Continuous development and improvement of Customs control techniques
--- Maximum use of information technology
--- A partnership approach between Customs and the Trade.
In line with the foregoing principles, the TRIPS Agreement also requires from WIPO members not only to provide effective and speedy enforcement of IP rights but also to provide safeguards against abuses of the system. It requires that the enforcement procedures must not hinder the smooth flow of trade in genuine goods and should not create barriers to international trade. For this purpose, a mechanism has been provided in Articles 51 to 60 of the TRIPS Agreement, which are the subject matter of Customs. The Federal Board of Revenue is in the process of drafting rules in accordance with WCO's Model Legislation, which are to be finalised in consultation with IPO (Pakistan).
The Federal Board of Revenue has all along been providing assistance to IPO Pakistan in combating piracy and counterfeiting, since its inception in 2005. A special section was created in FBR to co-ordinate IPR related activities. Dedicated "IPR Cells" were set up in all Customs formations to focus on trafficking of illegal and pirated CDs, Computer Programmes and other counterfeit products. Due to effective activation of Pakistan Customs to control counterfeiting and piracy, the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) certified that export of pirated optical discs from Pakistan's major international airports has "completely dried up".
Since IPR is relatively a new field of operation for Customs in Pakistan for developing requisite skills to encounter IPR related violations, meaningful training would be essential for the officers of Customs and other law enforcing agencies. Concerted efforts are needed to create awareness among stakeholders about implications of this issue and the resultant damage to international trade and its links to organised crimes. Appropriate legislation, effective implementation, skilful enforcement and efficient communicational network with other international agencies would be the key elements for success. The Federal Board of Revenue and Customs Administration, must make all concerted efforts to curb the menace of piracy and counterfeiting to the best of their abilities and resources and the FBR should continue to remain a partner in progress with IPO (Pakistan).
(The writer is a retired Collector of Customs and a Resource Person on enforcement of issues pertaining to IPRs)
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