KARACHI: Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President FPCCI, urged the government to 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 Organisation (IPO) has conducted a consultative session with the FPCCI to apprise the business community of their services and the mechanism to protect the 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 and 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-a -vis IPRs from platform of the apex body.

Shaukat Omerson, VP FPCCI, proposed that Pakistani business community should be given a fair chance at learning about the world intellectual property organisation (WIPO) so that their trademarks and patents are protected in international markets – and, it will result in creating, developing and sustaining international brands.

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

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023