Q. COPTRIGHT ENFORCEMENT IN IPR?
In the Copyright Ordinance, 1962 civil as well criminal remedies are provided. Sections 56 to 65 deals with the civil Remedies where sections 66 to 74 deals with the criminal Remedies. This law is quite powerful in its enactment because it gives wide power to the police to seize infringing copies without warrant.
Since the patent laws hence we discuss the same in details. According to the Patents Ordinance, 2000, the concept of product Patent was introduced and filing of Application was allowed which will be treated as Mail Box/Black Box Application. However it was provided that the Controller shall not refer to an examiner any such Application, claiming protection for chemical product intended for use in medicines or Agriculture till 31st December, 2004 and the proceedings regarding such application will be started on the 1st day of January, 2005.
It was also provided in the said Act that where a person has filed an application for the protection of chemical product intended for use in medicine or Agriculture and has obtained a patent and marketing approval therefore in another member country, he shall be entitled to an exclusive privilege for marketing the said product for a period of five years after obtaining marketing approval of the Federal Government or until the patent on the application is granted or rejected, whichever period is shorter.
It is to be noted that prior to this amendment, our Government has reciprocal arrangement only with 7 common wealth Countries such as, Australia, Canada, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, New Zealand, South Africa and United Kingdom, whereby the priority can be claimed only for such application, which was filed in any of the above mentioned country and not otherwise BUT in this Amendment Act, the priority can be claimed from Application filed in a country which is signatory to the Agreement for establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and accordingly a Pakistani Applicant can claim priority in that 181 Countries, who are signatory to WTO
This FAQ is prepared by Sadia Saman Advocate