IP agency to boost manpower vs counterfeiting, piracy

The government’s intellectual property (IP) rights body is looking to expand its piracy and counterfeiting monitoring and investigating team as illicit trades have risen by a third this year.

Last week, Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) director general Rowel Barba said their office had received around 300 reports so far this year, making a 50-percent increase compared with the 200 reports filed during the same period in 2022.

“We can attribute (the increase) to Filipinos becoming more aware now. They can report counterfeiting and piracy,” Barba told reporters.

Barba said that in the Philippines, cases of counterfeiting of products such shoes, bags and apparel still outnumbered cases of piracy or the authorized selling and copying of music, movies and e-books.

The IPOPHL official said they were now expanding the capacity to go after pirates and counterfeiters with the recent completion of the rules on disabling internet access to websites promoting such activities.

“This is because we are expecting that there will be a flood of complaints,” Barba said.

“There is already a core [team]. Maybe we will add an additional five personnel,” Barba said further.

From January to September, the IPOPHL’s data showed at least P23.03 billion worth of pirated goods had been seized by authorities, leading to a more than two-fold increase in the value of these contrabands.

This was the nine-month collective haul of the National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine National Police, Bureau of Customs and the Food and Drug Administration. INQ