ICC’s Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) has again stressed the need for dialogue between the various groups involved in IP value and distribution chains to accelerate the development of anti-counterfeiting solutions and best practices.
BASCAP releases IP reference tool for businesses and policymakers
ICC’s Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) has again stressed the need for dialogue between the various groups involved in IP value and distribution chains to accelerate the development of anti-counterfeiting solutions and best practices.
In its recently published IP Roadmap Report, BASCAP said industries affected by counterfeiting and piracy need also to continue to work and share information with government agencies and institutions involved in fighting illicit trade and organised crime.
The Roadmap looks at how new trends have transformed the IP landscape, and is described as an essential IP reference tool, with an overview of the most pressing issues currently facing policymakers and businesses in a constantly changing world.
BASCAP said recent technologies, such as 3D printing and new forms of dissemination of digitalised data, will bring added challenges for businesses in controlling the unauthorised production and distribution of their products and services and the use of their brands.
Current cooperation between industries, agencies and law enforcement has already started to show results and many stakeholders are educating other stakeholders on how they can best help collaborative efforts to minimise counterfeiting and piracy and promote economic growth.
Five key takeaways from the report:
Innovation is a global game
“Nowadays, IP is more likely to be created collectively by a team of different actors, each with specific expertise, often in different countries, rather than by a single organisation,” the IP Roadmap points out.
This creates formidable challenges for managing IP assets and enforcing IP rights in multiple jurisdictions with varying approaches to IP rights.
Initiatives to address these challenges include international efforts to harmonise standards and procedures, cooperation between IP offices, as well as through cooperation between different stakeholders in both the private and public sectors.
New technologies are transforming IP management and enforcement
Cutting-edge companies are racing to out-innovate each other in a series of high-profile sectors such as artificial intelligence. But innovation is also guided by the increased need for interoperability inherent in communication technologies and platforms, the ‘internet of things’, machine to machine communication and the industrial internet. This means that patents in the context of standards continues to be a hot issue.
IP is a public issue
If IP is often about protecting private creations, it nevertheless has implications for society that are increasingly debated in the public sphere. ICC’s IP Roadmap notes that there is an urgent need to communicate IP issues with the public so that political objections to IP initiatives are not based on a lack of understanding.
Company data and trade secrets are more valuable than ever
The Roadmap reports on recent legislative initiatives to address the challenges of protecting confidential business information in the digital world.
Intellectual property is a valuable asset in itself
IP is a valuable asset in itself that can bring in revenues, improve balance sheets, increase stock value, or be used as collateral. The valuation of IP has therefore become even more relevant but, despite an increase in the number of valuation techniques, the development of international standardised techniques remains a challenge since the value of IP depends on the context.
*The 2017 edition of the ICC Intellectual Property Roadmap can be found at https://cdn.iccwbo.org/content/uploads/sites/3/2014/11/icc-IProadmap-intellectual-property-roadmap-current-emerging-issues-business-policymakers.pdf
