ISLAMABAD, July 6: Pakistan has started upgrading its copyright laws with the help of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) following pressure from trading partners particularly the United States to improve its negative copyright image.

Official sources told Dawn here on Thursday that WIPO had also proposed major changes to the Pakistan’s Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Ordinance, 2004 and some other existing legislation. The organisation was seeking strict measures to ensure IPR laws at grass-roots level and hard punishment for the violators including a complete ban on illegal businesses.

WIPO experts have started studying the existing legislations regarding copyrights and have also forwarded their recommendations to the Intellectual Property Organisation (IPO)-Pakistan.

Being a signatory to the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement under the WTO, Pakistan required upgradation of its intellectual property infrastructure in synchronisation with global trends.

Despite some recent measures by the government, the sources said the intellectual property regime was still being internationally perceived to be constantly deteriorating. “This discourages foreign direct investment and serves as a disincentive to local research, innovation, creativity and development of intellectual property and knowledge assets in the country”.

WIPO was also cooperating with a high-powered Policy Board established by the government to oversee, guide and control the IPO-Pakistan to enable it to achieve its organisational objectives.

Officials said that the country was facing extreme pressure from the developed countries, especially the United States, to amend its existing legislations. The US was at the top of the list of the countries facing huge losses due to intellectual rights violations.

The United States has recently announced that it had closed a review of an industry-initiated petition seeking termination of Pakistan’s eligibility for the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme based on concerns over intellectual property rights. The GSP programme provides duty-free treatment to certain exports to the United States.

The US has ended the petition review due to the significant progress Pakistan has recently made in the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, especially with regard to stopping production of pirated optical media products (CDs, DVDs). The country has empowered the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Pakistan Customs with additional powers to raid and seize pirated goods.

However, it is not over yet. The United States is still monitoring Pakistan’s efforts to achieve continued IPR protection and enforcement through the section 301 process and ongoing bilateral consultations.