Brand owners told: File cases vs makers of counterfeit goods

THE Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) is encouraging brand owners to pursue cases against manufacturers of counterfeit products to prevent proliferation of fake goods.

IPOPHL Deputy Director General Nelson P. Laluces said putting to stop the proliferation of counterfeit goods can be traced to the interplay of supply and demand. With this, he said, enforcement should target the supply of such goods.

“Now’yungsupply kaya meron dahil may demand. But, the target of IPOPHL in terms of enforcement is the supply. How do we do that? ’Yung supply kasi ’yun ‘yung mga brand owners dapat mag cooperate because as we’ve been explaining every time, ang IP [intellectual property] rights, private rights ‘yan,” Laluces explained.

The IPOPHL official lamented that brand owners are generally not inclined to pursue cases against the manufacturers of counterfeit products, unlike in the case of Louis Vuitton, a brand that went after manufacturers of counterfeit goods in courts.

“How do we target the supply? Brand owners should also do their part by filing complaints with us and even with the regular courts,” Laluces said.

Last April, the 15-member National Committee on Intellectual Property Rights (NCIPR) under the IPOPHL seized P63 million worth of suspected counterfeit goods at the Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan City.

The operation, spearheaded by NCIPR member National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), led to the seizure of 755 pieces of fake Louis Vuitton products. The activity is part of the NCIPR’S commitment to remove Greenhills from the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) list of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy.

For his part, IPOPHL Deputy Director General (DDG) Teodoro C. Pascua, likewise, said that people should stop patronizing counterfeit goods because if there would be no demand, suppliers would not even bother to bring the goods to the shopping center.

Pascua also noted that one of the amendments that IPOPHL is pushing with Congress is for the amendment of the IP Code for the office to have “preliminary authority to seize and verify.”

“‘Pag in-approve ’yan, IPOPHL will go to Greenhills. Kasama namin siyempre ’yung rights owner, they will tell us what is fake. We will confiscate, not permanently but temporarily,” Pascua noted.

“We want the House of Representatives to approve that, we hope the Senate will approve that also. And we will do that with Greenhills and Divisoria,” he added.