Al-Halaiqa: IP Protection Requires Real Partnership between the Public and Private Sectors

AMMAN – On behalf of His Majesty King Abdullah II, Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein inaugurated the IP week activities which aim to advance the level of awareness on IP protection and its effect on the economic and creative levels in both the public and private sectors.
 
On this occasion, Mr. Sherif Saadallah, President of the Development Cooperation and External Relations Bureau for Arab Countries at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced the official opening of King Abdullah II Center for Intellectual Property, presided by Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein. The center is considered to be the first of its kind in the region and was created with the support of the Organization.
 
Sa'adallah said that the purpose of the Center is to create awareness in the field of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), their importance and the role they play in supporting investment, training and qualifying human cadres. The center will be a regional training hub and its construction is to begin in two weeks time.
 
Saadallah stated that the set up of the center in Jordan crowns the joint efforts exerted by Jordan and WIPO to amend and modernize IP legislations.  
 
He added that WIPO supported the various government institutions in Jordan through training its employees on IP and providing them with the necessary devices.
"Jordan is working hard to execute laws that protect inventors and national industries by organizing specialized symposiums on IP in cooperation with WIPO," Saadallah said noting that the number of pending IP cases in Jordanian courts has reached 500.
 
On his part, the President of the Jordanian Intellectual Property Society (JIPS), Mr. Murad Bushnaq stated that the main goal of this conference is to bring together the public, private and academic sector with the judges in order to enlighten the governmental sector with issues and problems facing the private sector through strengthening the judges' experiences and qualifications in IP laws and find in them a specialized group to speed the disposition of laws and ensure the implementation of rights.

Within the IP Week activities, the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Dr. Mohammed Al-Halaiqa, announced a joint public/private sector project to create a mechanism that activates the IP freedom in the presence of Dr. Salaheldin Al-Basheer, the attorney of the Legal Conglomerate for Business.
 
On that point, Dr. Halaiqa said that IPRs protection in Jordan has crossed great lengths except that it has not yet reached the complete level of its goals given the scarcity of financial resources. The Minister called for providing financial aid to Jordan by the local and private sectors in addition to the international institutions.
 
He confirmed that this issue poses a major challenge facing government sectors, noting that the Jordanian private sector concerned with establishing the principle of IP protection should provide financial aid and in return the government will create new IPRs legislations and/or modernize those that already exist. 
 
Meanwhile, Dr. Al-Basheer said that the cooperation between the private and public sectors has to rely on giving the private sector greater opportunities in national economic development, the creation of some sort of a dialogue between the government and the private sector and the visualization of a specific strategy on the requirements needed to activate the principle of IPRs.
He added that the conference will not concentrate on patent protection but on the protection of intellectual capital, while calling for the necessary measures to avoid failure and achieve positive results.
 
On his part, Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, Deputy Chair of the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force (UN ICT TF) called for organizing an international conference on trademarks and the digital divide in the aim of researching and evaluating an important aspect of development - creation and innovation, ensuring that the WIPO, UN ICT TF, ICC and other related organizations will welcome the proposal.
 
Abu-Ghazaleh stated in his speech entitled "The UN and the Importance of Trademarks in Bridging the Digital Divide," that although prioritizing the digital divide on a regional level is important; bridging it is an issue that will be in everyone's advantage.
 
He also pointed out that such a step is important to economists and the long-term economic expectations of IP owners and practitioners as well as trademark agents confirming that it is possible to bridge the IT digital divide because it is for the benefit of owners of that knowledge.
 
 
Abu-Ghazaleh added that the digital divide is a rare phenomenon since the expression points to a divide between those with capabilities to use digital technologies and those who have lesser luck in this field. However, at a closer look, we can see that the digital divide is a group of divides. The main aspects of the digital divide is the divide between the developed and developing countries in addition to the divide between various geographical and racial entities as well as social classes, income, gender and other existing groups in the country itself and the divide that exists between various developing countries. He highlighted the fact that developing countries could be suffering from all the above-mentioned divides; however, he stressed that what these countries have achieved and what it is working on achieving with regards to development despite the limited resources is indeed noteworthy.  
 
He said that all international development organizations have adopted the idea of ICT to complement developmental efforts while incorporating the mission of bridging the digital divide and creating digital opportunities into its main set of goals. The UN ICT TF have cooperated  with the initiatives of these international organizations, which include the United Nations Development Program, World Bank, WIPO, WTO, World Economic Forum, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
 
Abu-Ghazaleh said that it has become clear that bridging the digital divide will create a larger environment for e-trading and e-government and in return improve the protection of procedures internationally, adding that it is in everyone's interest if the largest number of governments and business institutions participate not only in the process of protection but also for the organization of trademarks.
 
In a statement to Al- Dustour, Abu-Ghazaleh said: "IP protection has a set of essential hereditary pillars which culminate in creating legislation that complies with the requirements of international agreements and the WTO and this has been achieved in Jordan."
 
Apart from the application of these legislations and the set up of an amended judicial system that is adjusted to comply with the special requirements necessary for entering these treaties, Abu-Ghazaleh stressed on the importance of speeding up the execution of IP cases to complete its sound infrastructure.
 
He added that in this generation of technology there are many challenges related to the information revolution. Those challenges are not governed by international laws, pointing to the fact that the only protection provided in the digital world is protection of website names.
 
He added that the necessary required technology for protecting internet trade relations as well as a system that can identify the legitimacy of actions in the event of misconducts in the digital world must be developed, pointing to the importance of protecting domain names and trademarks on the Internet.
 
In respect of King Abdullah II Center for Intellectual Property, Abu-Ghazaleh said that the establishment of the Center aims to prepare society and raise its awareness on the real definition of IP to create an environment for innovation and from thereon an environment for investment. The center will focus on training employees of the private and public sectors as well as conducting researches and studying the necessary steps that can lead to the development of systems concerned with IP protection.
 
 
He noted that Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) has translated the WIPO'S curriculum material related to IPRs under the auspices of a joint agreement with the organization.
 
"In the space of two years, AGIP has developed this 1000-page study for the purpose of enhancing the qualification of IP experts," Abu-Ghazaleh said, implying that AGIP will offer this study to the Center to aid it in serving its purpose.  
 
The opening session of the conference was attended by each of the Minister of Planning, Dr. Basem Awadallah and the President of the US Patent and Trademark Registration Office and Regional Legal Consultant, Mr. David Park, in addition to 300 participants from the US, Europe and other Arab countries.
 
H.H. Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein also inaugurated the exhibition on the sidelines of the conference, whereby representatives from the Income division, Pharmaceutical, ICT, Books and Music industry showcased examples of their work.