Philippines IP Director lays out plans for improving IP enforcement

At an AmCham Intellectual Property Rights Committee Meeting in Manila this week, The IP Office DG Ricardo Blancaflor talked about "Current and Future Plans for Intellectual Property Enforcement". He mentioned 
 
1. Removal of the Philippines from the USTR Special 301 watch list after ‘sustained actions’
2. Enforcement issues still faced today include: judicial system and legal infrastructure weaknesses, limited IP enforcement powers, rampant digital piracy and general availability of counterfeits in the market.
3. In view of the 2015 ASEAN integration, DG identified the following regional action plan:
 a. Information awareness activities on enforcement
 b. Publicly available statistical informoation on IP enforcement
 c. Documenting the reduced movement of pirated goods and counterfeits
 d. Private sector involvement in antipiracy and information awareness campaign4. He summarized efforts of the IPO in 2014:
 a. Increased copyright enforcement actions through the NCIPR
 b. Streamlining judicial procedures
 c. Capacity building
 d. Information campaigns
Several other points were discussed:

• The Bureau of Copyrights is still not established due to budgetary delays 
• More anti-counterfeiting training / brand familiarization for Customs is needed
• There is ongoing dialogue between FDA and IPO concerning patents. DG didn’t want to elaborate and simply said they’re waiting for outcome of dialogue.
• There will be an IP enforcement summit on 20 October 2014.

The Philippines IPO is good at IP holder outreach and continues to make steps to improve the IP enformcenet system.