Penny for your thoughts?
Efforts are underway to boost Arab countries' awareness of developments in the area of intellectual property. Niveen Wahish reports
Although intellectual property rights (IPR) had some recognition in the laws of many Arab countries, the issue has taken on a different dimension since the 1994 signing of the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), annexed to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The agreement, which has provisions on copyrights and related rights, patents, trademarks, geographical indications of products, industrial designs and layout designs of integrated circuits, obliged members to meet their commitments by 1995 with an exception for developing countries, which received an extension until 2000. They received a further transitional period for patent protection for pharmaceuticals until 2005.
Currently, developing countries, Arab countries included, continue to face "technical difficulty" in the agreement's implementation, according to Nuno Pires de Carvalho, head of the Industrial Property Law section of the Cooperation for Development Department in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). For WIPO, which administers a number of intellectual property rights agreements and is mandated to provide developing countries with assistance in implementing TRIPs, technical difficulty is often synonymous with legal change.
De Carvalho explained that the breadth of TRIPs obligations are problematic for developing countries. Egypt, which has had IPR laws on books since the 1930s, is no exception.
"The governments are facing the need to modify a huge number of laws," he said. "And when they change a given law they must make sure it does not conflict with another law on the same topic."
De Carvalho nevertheless said that Egypt's trading partners have been very understanding of the difficulties in adapting the legal framework according to contemporary intellectual property standards.
To help Arab countries understand the technical demands of implementing TRIPs, WIPO and the Arab League are cooperating in the organisation of a series of seminars. One seminar for the economic advisors of Arab League delegations convened last week in Cairo. According to de Carvalho, one of the main speakers, the seminar aimed at using the Arab League as a conduit for increasing awareness of developments in the field of intellectual property as well as of rights and commitments in the TRIPs framework. The creation of an intellectual property unit within the Arab League three years ago was also a step in that direction.
Besides technical difficulties faced by developing countries in implementing TRIPs, economic difficulties are also associated with the effective establishment of IPR. According to de Carvalho, the application of TRIPs can have a negative affect on industries that emerged in an era without effective intellectual property protection. He recognised that the entry into force of the agreement in a country like Egypt, which has a strong generic industry, is significant.
"These pharmaceutical companies were used to copying the products that were developed by the research- based pharmaceutical industry," he said. "And they cannot do that anymore."
One way of avoiding the fallout from the TRIPs prohibition on generic industry has been demonstrated by Jordan. De Carvalho described how Jordan, upon acceding to the WTO in 2000, successfully built partnerships with the international pharmaceutical companies.
"If manufacturer is accepted as a reliable partner by the pharmaceutical sector they will teach him the know-how," he said.
However, while some sector stand to lose, there are other areas where gains can be made. Geographical indications is one such area. Egypt is an exporter of certain types of well known dates. Once geographical indications are applied, no country besides Egypt, can export dates under the same name.
"This is an immediate element of protection of interest for Egypt," de Carvalho said.
Copyrights is another area where intellectual property protection will benefit Arab countries. With a domestic legal framework protecting entrepreneurs' investments, a uniquely Arab industry producing cultural products could be quite successful.
