The Philippines saw an increase of nearly four percentage points in the United States Chamber of Commerce’s (USCC) 2020 International Intellectual Property (IP) Index, indicative of sufficiency of policies to protect IP assets from infringement.
USCC’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) released February 5 showed the Philippines’ overall index score stood at 39.94 percent as it fared positively in 19.97 indicators out of 50.
This is an increase from 36 percent for 16.2 out of 45 indicators in the 2019 index.
In percentile ranking, the Philippines moved 70 percent closer to the top, from 74 percent in the previous year.
The increase in index se was mainly due to the cooperative approach the country has taken against online counterfeiting and piracy, as well as the addition of new indicators in which the country scored remarkably.
The index cited as a contributing factor the country’s 0.25-point climb in the “Availability of frameworks that promote cooperative private action against online sale of counterfeit goods” indicator.
The index also noted the country’s “strong performance” in indicators it added this year, namely: “Plant variety protection, term of protection” in which the Philippines scored 1 point; “IP-intensive industries, national economic impact analysis” with 0.50 point; and “Membership of the Convention on Cybercrime, 2001” with 1 point.
The USCC-GIPC noted the anti-infringement efforts which some of the country’s biggest online retailers, specifically Zalora and Lazada, voluntarily put in place in 2019.
“In 2019, the Philippines moved closer to adopting substantive changes to its copyright environment that will provide rights-holders with more effective ways of combating online infringement,” the USCC-GIPC said.
