Signatory brand owners and e-commerce platforms renewed their partnership after noting a significant decline in takedowns due to infringement.
In a statement, the Intellectual Property of the Philippines (IPOPHL), said the parties signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) after its second year of running against infringers.
The agency organized the second review on May 23, 2023. UK Rouse was an observer through its Philippine partner, Baranda & Associates which provided technical assistance on the drafting of the MOU.
Present during the review were representatives from Shopee, Zalora, Golden ABC, Globe Telecoms, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Cambridge University Press, Pharmaceutical Security Institute and Honeywell.
IPOPHL said the collaboration with Shopee and Lazada has resulted in a dip of counterfeit incidents, as shown in the decline of takedowns of infringing posts, ads and accounts.
There were 83 takedowns in January to June 2023 compared to 11,151 takedowns in the prior six-month period ending December.
Golden ABC, which owns the brands Penshoppe, OXGN, ForMe, Memo, Regatta and BOCU, said the MOU also enabled them to provide information to the Philippine National Police (PNP) which resulted in the raids of alleged infringers’ physical shops.
Their physical market surveillance of sellers had also revealed that the latter were operating in Lazada and Shopee and these were subsequently reported to the platforms.
One trend cited by Ramesh Raj Kishore, regional director for the Asia Pacific Region of the Pharmaceutical Security Institute, was the influx of pharmaceutical products being sold in the Philippines but are not licensed to be sold in the country.
The importation per se of pharmaceutical products not registered with the Philippines’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also defined as “counterfeit drug/medicine” and is a violation of Republic Act 8203 or the Special Law of Counterfeit Drugs. However, Kishore said these grey market products could also be counterfeits in violation of the IP Code of 1997.
