Seized fake goods to hit record high this year

MANILA, Philippines — The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) said the value of counterfeit goods seized by the government may hit a new record this year, banking on enhanced cooperation of agencies involved in IP rights enforcement.

“We hope this will be another record-breaking year in terms of seizures for the NCIPR (National Committee on IP Rights),” IPOPHL director general Rowel Barba said in a press conference during the committee’s annual meeting.

He said the tally in the January to September period has already reached over P23 billion. In 2021, counterfeit items seized by the NCIPR hit a record high of P24.9 billion.

Last year, the value of counterfeit items confiscated by the government reached just around P9 billion, with the decline attributed to the change in administration and staff.

About two-thirds of the haul was accounted for by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in the past years.

Barba said setting a new record for counterfeit goods seized by the government is possible this year because of “enhanced cooperation of NCIPR, of all agencies.”

NCIPR is a multi-agency group responsible for coming up with and implementing plans and policies to strengthen the protection and enforcement of IPR in the country.

The 15-member NCIPR is composed of the Department of Trade and Industry as chair and the IPOPHL as vice chair, as well as the Department of Justice (DOJ), BOC, Food and Drug Administration, National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine National Police, Optical Media Board, National Book Development Board, Office of the Special Envoy on Transnational Crime, Department of the Interior and Local Government, National Telecommunications Commission, Department of Information and Communications Technology, Bureau of Internal Revenue, and Bureau of Immigration as members.

Barba said counterfeit goods in the country are coming from China, Bangladesh and Vietnam.

While a report released by the US Trade Representative earlier this year cited the Philippines as one of the leading sources of counterfeit medicines, he said the country is likely just being used for transshipment.

“We don’t have a big manufacturing capability especially for medicines,” he said.

As part of intensified efforts to fight counterfeiting and piracy in the country, he said the IPOPHL is set to start using the IP enforcement tracking system, to be delivered by software developer Multisys Technologies Corp. next month.

To be used by NCIPR members, the IP enforcement tracking system is expected to streamline the monitoring and coordination on cases related to counterfeiting and piracy in the country.

Through the digital platform, the NCIPR will have a system for the proper collection, storage and management of information, including records on complaints received; search warrants applied for and served; seizures; alert orders; cases prosecuted by and those still pending before the DOJ; those pending with and decided by the courts; and other enforcement data.