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eLaw Practice
Singapore's IT Revolution, June 14, 2002
Christopher Heath, from Germany's Max Planck Institute
for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law, praises
the efforts of the Philippines, referring to its long tradition of intellectual
property rights protection introduced by the Spanish and the 1998 introduction
of an intellectual property code.
However, leading Philippine lawyer, JJ Disini, is not
so complimentary. Professor Disini, founder and partner of Disini and
Disini, says that, while the Philippine Congress merged the disparate
statues on trademarks, patent and copyright into the Intellectual Property
Code in 1998 to secure the intellectual property rights protection for
stakeholders, rights enforcement and the inability to stem the tide of
pirated music, movies and software remain areas of such concern.
"There's a failure on the part of the government to
bring down the pirates who manufacture fake [goods]," Disini says "…While
the government has engaged in seizing pirated [goods] from retailers,
this has proven to be ineffective." …. the government has moved quickly
with electronic commerce legislation. "Section 33(b) of the Electronic
Commerce Act penalizes those infringing against intellectual property
rights over telecommunications networks, such as the Internet."…."It is,
therefore, a criminal offence for a Filipino to use file swapping services
like Napster."
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