ASEAN Integration on How it affects your Intellectual Property 

The introduction of the intellectual property code was made for the protection and enjoyment of a right of an individual, pertaining to their creations made born from the blood and sweat of their efforts and intellect. It is what defines them on who they are and what they contribute to society.

  Section 2 of the Republic act No. 8293 sums us how much this is important it states that: The state recognizes that an effective Intellectual and industrial property system is vital to the development of domestic and creative activity, facilitates transfer of technology ,attracts foreign investments and ensures market access for our products. It shall protect and secure the exclusive rights of scientists, investors, artists and other gifted citizens to their intellectual property and creations, particularly when beneficial to the people, for such periods as provided in this act.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) may seem like a low priority to a country that is struggling to ensure the basic needs of its population. However, it is undeniable that by attracting investments from comparably wealthy nations, emerging countries can accelerate their own economic growth. Assuring those wealthy nations that it is safe to outsource their manufacturing to a developing country or to bring in their proprietary manufacturing processes are key factors in generating investments.1

So the Intellectual property offices are created, a commission created specifically for the monitoring and implementation of the rules and regulations that would make the protection of these rights possible. With the rise of technology and the daw of the new era of industrialization. A protection is all the more in need of realization.

Now Intellectual Property plays a central element in our economy and cultural policy playing a huge role that could make or break a society. In our modern society the economy has become more and more reliant on intellectual creations as their source of wealth, as opposed to the physical, capital which markets are distributed across the globe. With this as a canvass it is clear that Intellectual property must no be also limited to the confines of a nation but across nations a breakthrough for thought.2

Introducing Intellectual property on a much larger scale is no mundane task it requires a more extensive protection and observation. It creates a higher risk of infringement and theft in trying to exploit such a creation towards the greater masses. Hence come the Integration of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations.) the task of providing a just and equitable environment for the exploitation of knowledge has made it an even bigger battleground. This trend will force the nation to drive a stronger patent system that will provide for a way to obtain the needed protection and a system of enforcement. 

ASEAN has been changing the regional landscape by as it works towards an economic, political and cultural community. Providing for a more stable and reliable system that transcends the Southeast Asian countries. Promising as that may sound it does provide a fair share of argument as to its viability. A possible major improvement that it may bring would be the benefit of expanding markets and promoting a healthy competition by eliminating the barriers to trade among member countries. Economic welfare increases as resources previously engaged in costly domestic production are efficiently reallocated to the direction of a country’s comparative advantage and to that which generates greater productivity (“trade creation effect”). An expanded regional market may also be seen by countries outside the region as an increase in trade opportunity. However integration also has its potential drawbacks like or examples are: 

 First, it may give rise to welfare losses if the “trade creation effect” is overshadowed by a “trade diversion effect”, i.e., if the elimination of barriers to trade among member-countries causes trade with more efficient non-member countries to be diverted to the less efficient member-country. 

Second, it may lead to an “investment diversion effect” where limited investment resources are diverted to the larger-scale integrated market. 

Third, there are concerns on the “noodle bowl effect”, referring to the potential problems that may arise as a result of lack of coherence among different overlapping agreements. Tumbarello (2007) cites bilateral agreements being negotiated by some individual member-countries of the ASEAN with non-ASEAN countries even as ASEAN itself is negotiating with the same country. Since there is little effort to achieve consistency and harmonization in the agreements being negotiated, there arises a restrictive and inconsistent rule of origin that complicates the trading system. An example given on differences on rules of origin is that of the New Zealand-Singapore and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) which uses the 40 percent value-added criteria, while ASEAN-India, Singapore-India and Japan-Singapore include multiple-change-of-tariff-heading criteria or other more complex provisions.

Another major concern here however is on how it will affect the protection given to Intellectual Property owners and how they are sure for the protection of their rights. Economists have recognized that the protection of Intellectual Property rights have a direct impact on affecting the trade flows. The initial inference is that an insufficiency in the IPR protection can actually lead to a distorted trade patterns and the ability of the firms to transfer their technology abroad.

With these in thought what could well be the effects of the ASEAN Integration towards the Intellectual Property Rights?

The possible effects of the ASEAN integration in regards to Intellectual Property rights

The benefits:

The Berne convention for protection of Literary and Artistic works established in Switzerland in 1886 will be reinforced by the integration. The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognize the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of the Berne Union) in the same way as it recognizes the copyright of its own nationals. For example, French copyright law applies to anything published or performed in France, regardless of where it was originally created. In addition to establishing a system of equal treatment that internationalised copyright amongst signatories, the agreement also required member states to provide strong minimum standards for copyright law. Copyright under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is prohibited to require formal registration (note however that when the United States joined the Convention in 1988, it continued to make statutory damages and attorney's fees only available for registered works). The ASEAN integration will help in reinforcing the said International treaty by making use of their unified strategic goal of having one international IP system this method would provide a widespread awareness and fortified protection against potential threats to Intellectual Property rights. This could also create a mindset of confidence in the consciousness of the innovators for they know that what they do can surely be guarded against unprecedented harm.

A benefit that can be derived from the ASEAN integration in relation to Intellectual property is IPR being a tradionally independent system it stands as hindrance in the trading of goods especially now in the innovations done through technology. To overcome this possible method the ASEAN integration will make is the establishment of a common IPR examination or common IPR rules on this method a threat or plan to gain an unfair advantage over the other on the competition is diminished or at the very least reduced.

Another one will be the creation of the IPR action plan given the rapid expansion of international norms and cross cutting concerns in IP, ASEAN needs to craft an approach that takes into accounts the diverse needs and the varying levels of capacity of its member states. On a broader concept the creation of this action plan is to ensure that the contribution to the development oriented concerns and societal interest are met and the contribution to the promotion of knowledge creation, technological innovation and transfer, business generations in a manner conducive to the welfare of every region. The ASEAN need to keep track of international developments in Intellectual Property and determine what best practices can be adopted on a regional level. 

We can also derive from the ASEAN integration the benefits of it raising awareness to its regions this in turn would give a rise on trademark and patent filing gaining notice of the benefits accrued form doing so. If a region wishes to be more competitive they can do so because of the integration access to developed countries technologies and publicly available patent information in order for more Intellectual Property rights to be created. More registrations mean more revenues which in turn would create a far more thriving economic stability.

A thing to be considered as well is the implementation of the ASEAN integration would make an active regional participation in the international IP community, it means it would create a direct line of communication to dialogue partners which would develop the capacity of Member States to go hand in hand in the creation of a far more better economy and to gain the ability to directly address the needs of its regions and its stake holders. This in turn could create an intensified cooperation among member countries and an increased number of collaboration among them to enhance human and institutional capacity of Intellectual Property offices in the region.

ASEAN over the years has relied heavily on partners and institutions to enhance the human and institutional capacity of Intellectual Property.  While recognizing the need for and continuing the benefit from maintained relationships with more developed partners and organizations and institutions, there is a need for a and continuing benefit from maintained relationships with more developed partners and organizations, there is a need to rely on each other and engage in deeper and more meaningful cooperation. Undertaking joint activities and intensifying cooperation, with or without the assistance of partners, will not only result in the success of the ASEAN projects but will also build confidence in the capacity to provide assistance to other members.  ASEAN integration realizes this so reliance on each members of the group is one of their goals to improve their capacity as a region. Without losing track to be part of the global Intellectual Property system. 

With the ever changing society it’s not enough to just try and make some changes they have to show it too. Intellectual Property laws are very fickle and are different from one country to another given the diversity, the integration will try and create an international, rather than a regional, protection mechanism from Intellectual Property owners and creators worldwide, and the need for region to participate in global IP systems in order to be more competitive, can surely benefit if the ASEAN can dictate its own pace.

This would over all make a more balanced Intellectual Property system that takes into accounts every region and make proper adjustments on how they see it fit. The need to continuously attract the inflow of knowledge and the assurance that inventors and innovators patents would be granted is needed for this would create a better opportunity for technological information eventually be diffused to local business, which, in turn will spur the growth of the technological and innovative capacity of the region. As local business continue to grow, the need for them to use trademarks to distinguish their products and services become more important. With strong trademark system in the regions, ASEAN member countries will be encouraged to file or register where they’re industry resides and foreign entities that bring their businesses into the region will be assured of the protection of their marks 

The overall goal of the of the ASEAN integration was to actually achieve a continuous improvement of the quality of the Intellectual Property registrations granted and timelines in the delivery of services. Improving quality means improving both the presumption of validity of granted Intellectual property rights and access by the public. Improving science delivery means reducing turnaround times for the processing of applications and minimizing if not eliminating, backlogs. It also means devising mechanisms for work sharing to ease patent workloads in a specific region In addition; it needs to provide services that are accessible and transparent. This can only be done by the improvement of infrastructures and to link together every resource to exchange information needed by stake holders in the region.

POSSIBLE DISADVANTAGES

In the time that the Integration would happen there is bound to be some implications that would stir some negative anomalies and some issues that are bound to make some controversy. The plan of the ASEAN for unifying its member countries is a broad and bold task though it does seem a lot of benefit there are some scenarios that could prove it otherwise.

One that is most obvious would be the discrimination that the ASEAN is facing even before the integration happen it shows a clear distinction that all is not well being labelled by the world government as being too “soft” on their approach, as proof  of it was during the 12th ASEAN Summit in Cebu , several activist groups staged anti-globalization and anti-Arroyo rallies.[68] According to the activists, the agenda of economic integration would negatively affect industries in the Philippines and would cause thousands of Filipinos to lose their jobs. They also viewed the organization as "imperialistic" that threatens the country's sovereignty.  To translate this means that right from the get go the ASEAN integration would first have to deal with obtaining the full trust and confidence of its subject regions for the scepticism that the ASEAN integration would bring would seem to undermine the beneficial consequences that it can bring. It would certainly play a huge factor in establishing a unified Intellectual Property System since this will hinder the limits and the effort the Philippine government can willingly collaborate with other members.

Since the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations of trade liberalization in 1994, IPR has become a more important aspect in STI development as well as economic growth as it affects innovation as well as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and trade.

On this aspect we can see that though Intellectual Property Rights now plays a central element in our society. The Philippines is still on an unfair disadvantage Developed countries have been keen on protecting their IPR; however, as it is a fairly new concept to developing and less-developed countries and regions, the relevant IPR policies are still under development and/or at an early implementation stage. It is common knowledge that most of the ASEAN members are very keen and quite experienced in terms of their policies in trade and investment activities, as a result the Philippines is in the edge of being overpowered by others and be a minority in regards to being a competitive force in the global economy. This would mean that the Philippine would actually has subsidize their standards in order to cope with other member of the regions which could mean that to integrate efficiently the Philippines has to shift their focus from trying to improve the government or developing an efficient Intellectual Property Rights System to just trying to maintain their relations to the export business bearing no choice but to continue with its comprehensive renovation. Philippine is required to level its external trade and investment policies to those of its fellow ASEAN members.

By joining the ASEAN and participating in the AFTA, the Philippines has to step up their game in order to perform on par with some of the members of the regions. Threading on an unbalanced game Philippines has a lot of ground to cover

With respect to the Free Flow of Skilled Labor policy then, Philippine skilled workers will have difficulty in finding jobs both locally and regionally. It is claimed in the ASEAN Economic Community blueprint (2009) that ASEAN countries are going to facilitate the issuance of visas and employment passes for ASEAN professionals and skilled labor who are engaged in cross-border trade and investment-related activities, meaning skilled workers across ASEAN will be legally able to work in Philippines freely. Nonetheless, this policy will  not benefit Philippines skilled laborer owing to the fact that human resources in the country is still limited, and thus are not yet able to compete in the job markets with other skilled laborers. This would affect the Intellectual Property Rights in the Philippines because the bypass of people to the restrictions imposed before the Integration is abolished posing a threat to an otherwise peaceful competition. It means that even foreign innovators can settle their Inventions here hindering the quality and quantity the local citizens could possibly create.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, though the integration will brought an ne age of economic stability and prosperity for promoting programs that could readily access the new world and possessing strategic goals that could make independence from the crisis of the norm. It must not look pass in its previous incarnations for there still exist some gray areas that are left unanswered and  are in demand for a clear cut solution. 

REFERENCES:

1Rodney D Ryder, Intellectual property and the Internet 64 (Butterwoths ed., 2002).

2http://siiaonline.org/page/research_asean/

Regional integration: the ASEAN vision 2020

Impacts of Intellectual Property Rights on Trade Flows in ASEAN Countries-Nguyen Khanh Doanh

Yoon Heo

ASEAN Intellectual Property Rights Action Plan 2011-2015

https://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090203040752AA1iNIz

ASEAN Economic Community: Are we ready for 2015?- rappler.com, David Lozada

WIPO-ASEAN STUDY The Strategic Use of Intellecutal Property to Enhance Competitiveness in Select

Industries in ASEAN

<http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/intproperty/953/wipo_pub_953.pdf>7.