ISLAMABAD: Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) in collaboration with Intellectual Property Organization (IPO) Pakistan organized an awareness session on intellectual property rights (IPRs) including trademarks, patents, industrial designs and copyrights for business community.
Speaking on the occasion, Shahid Rashid, Chairman, IPO-Pakistan said that the protection of intellectual property rights brought many benefits to the economy as strong enforcement of IPRs protected consumers and producers, ensured better economic growth and competitiveness, encouraged innovation, rewarded entrepreneurs, generated breakthrough solutions for various problems, created and supported high paying jobs. He said IPR was accounting for 38% of total GDP of USA.
He said IPO-Pakistan was taking many initiatives to ensure better protection of IPRs and was working on developing a web portal to enable businessmen and other stakeholders to file online applications for registration of trademarks, patents and copyrights. He said the facility will enable online application filing and tracking system, complete validation of trademarks data and online search of trademark database. He said approximate time for registration of patent was 30 months with 20 years of initial protection term, for trademark 18 months with 10 years protection term, for industrial design 10 months with 30 years protection term and for copyright 10 months with lifetime protection term. At this occasion, detailed presentations were given about patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyrights, geographical indicators etc. to the business community.
In his welcome address, Atif Ikram Sheikh, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that better understanding of various components of intellectual property rights and using them effectively has become very important for Pakistani entrepreneurs to compete successfully in today’s competitive business environment and effective measures should be taken to ensure strong enforcement and full protection to IPRs in Pakistan.
He said to remain ahead of the competitors, business entities have to introduce new products and services and they needed an efficient and effective intellectual property system for protection of patents, trademarks and manufacturing secrets. He said IPRs would foster business and investment activities in the country and government should take all possible measures to bring further improvements in IPR laws to ensure their strong enforcement.
