October 20, 2006	Friday	Ramazan 26, 1427

KARACHI, Oct 19: Trade marks will be issued to about 8,000 firms in the services sector shortly following the introduction of the facility of registration about two years ago. The trade marks registration was earlier confined to products only.

The Trade Marks Registry was reorganised under the Intellectual Property Organisation of Pakistan (IPO) in April 2005 in order to align it with the requirements of Trips (Trade Related Investment Promotion Service).

Registrar Trade Marks Mohammad Mohsin told Dawn on Thursday that the department had so far issued about 100,000 trade marks, while 150,000 applications were in process.

The majority of trade marks registered with the department is from the pharmaceutical sector followed by cosmetics, dyes and chemicals, household appliances, light engineering goods and food items.

He said that the research and examination of a long list of trade marks already issued, which was earlier done through manual work, took about three years in finalising a new trade mark. But now with the computerisation of the processing system a trade mark registry is issued in two years.

A trade mark registry, however, does not become effective until it is published in the Trade Mark Journal. The delay in publication of the journal has also been reduced from 27 months to nine months following streamlining of the process.

Elaborating on the lengthy process of search and examination before issuing a trade mark, Mr Mohsin said that the research was carried out to certify that no similar trade marks had earlier been issued. Similarly, the examination was aimed at searching for trade marks resembling the one applied for to avoid duplication, he added.

The trade mark department has been streamlined on the pattern of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) with the induction of professionals on market based salaries.

The trade marks registry fee is Rs1,000 charged with the application. The applicant has to pay another Rs3,000 on approval of the trade mark. A trade mark is valid for 10 years and it has to be renewed with a payment of Rs5,000.

At the start of trade mark registry in the country 90 per cent trade marks were issued to foreign companies, but now 70 per cent of the trade marks are registered by domestic companies.

Apart from trade marks the other departments - Patent office and Copyrights - have also been brought under the administrative control of the IPO, which is headed by Wasim Haqqie. It has so far organised five international seminars on intellectual property rights, including one with USAID, European Union and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

Before April 2005, intellectual property (IP) situation in Pakistan was internationally perceived to be constantly deteriorating because of the copyrights piracy. The country was rated 4th largest exporter of pirated optical discs to 46 countries. In the specific category of business software, the piracy ratio was alleged to be 82 per cent in Pakistan.

However, in order to rectify the deteriorating IP situation the government established the IPO in April 2005 for integrated management of intellectual property and enforcement coordination as a focal organisation. The government also activated and empowered FIA and Customs to eliminate piracy.