Strict IPR would boost ASEAN trade
Strict IPR would boost ASEAN trade
Southeast Asian nations would boost their trade and investment prospects by introducing more stringent intellectual property rights protection standards, European Union (EU) officials said Monday.
The EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are beefing up cooperation on intellectual property rights (IPR) cooperation, with a two-day workshop in Bangkok that began Monday.
The symposium was organized under the new European Commission- ASEAN Intellectual Property Rights Cooperation Programme (ECAP II), which fosters trade, investment and technology transfer between the two blocs.
Klauspeter Schmallenbach, head of the delegation of the European Commission in Bangkok, said the ability to comply with intellectual property rights rules would help developing nations take part in global trade.
ECAP II would help ASEAN countries "draw on European expertise in how to protect and enforce intellectual property rights" in compliance with World Trade Organization rules, he said in a statement.
"Such rights form one of the basic pillars upon which business and investor confidence are based. They are an essential tool for any country's economic development and through their implementation may help boost European investment in the region back to pre-crisis levels."
European Patents Office president Ingo Kober said it was vital that Southeast Asian states introduced proper legal and technical infrastructure to defend trademarks.
"These structures are developing in ASEAN countries, clearly there's a much larger interest than there was 20 or 30 years ago," he said, but adding that the performance of some nations was better than others.
"There are countries which in a number of aspects are still developing. I think one should not try to tell them how far they are lagging behind."
Kober said the two-day symposium, which brought together 50 experts in the field, "is further proof of the growing importance of IPR protection to world trade." --AFP