M’sian govt taking strong stand on IPR protection
Bernama, Malaysia
M’sian Govt Taking Strong Stand On IPR Protection
From Saraswathi Muniappan
9 May 2006
SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 (Bernama) — The Malaysian Government is taking a strong stand on the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), says International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz.
The American business community is therefore assured that the Malaysian government safeguards intellectual creations and technology inventions, Rafidah said.
Malaysia’s IPR enacted legislations and regulations conformed with international standards to protect foreign and local investors, she said at a question-and-answer session at the "Business Opportunities in Malaysia" seminar held here Tuesday.
The current legislations and regulations in place for intellectual property protection are Patents Act 1983 and Patent Regulations 1986, Trademarks Act 1976 and Trademarks Regulations 1997, Industrial Designs Act 1996 and Industrial Designs Regulations 1997, Copyright Act 1967 and Layout Design and Integrated Circuit Act 2000.
Rafidah is leading a 49-member mission comprising representatives from the private sector, her ministry, Malaysian Industrial Development Authority, Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation, state governments of Penang, Perak, Kedah, Sabah and Selangor, and Multimedia Development Corp Malaysia.
The trade and investment delegation to San Francisco marked the first visit to the United States since the joint announcement on the launch of the Malaysia-US free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations.
The minister was in Toronto, Canada, earlier and will address a similar seminar in Irvine, California, on May 10.
On a question concerning environment, Rafidah said Malaysia subscribed to international standards, laws and legislations that encouraged the business community to be environment-friendly.
"Very often we tell the Department of Environment to meet the international standards. We are to some extent more strict than the US," she said.
Regarding the possibility of Malaysia having FTAs with other Muslim countries, Rafidah said: "Basically, FTAs are negotiated mainly based on the economy platform and not solely on the religion. But this doesn’t mean we should not have FTAs with Muslim countries but we need to study the benefit and cost of such FTAs."
Hence, she said, Malaysia has not talked about it with any other Muslim countries besides Pakistan as the trading volume was still small.
Pakistan is the only Muslim country that Malaysia has an FTA with, through an early harvest programme implemented beginning January 2006, she noted.
The FTA negotiations are expected to be completed by end of this year and scheduled for implementation in 2007.
On other developments, Rafidah said within the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), in which Malaysia is a member, there is special preferential scheme with 14 countries.
Malaysia, she said, signed the agreement two months ago during her trade and investment mission to West Asia.
"But unfortunately we need 10 countries to operationalise the scheme. So far, only five countries have put pen to paper. So, we need 10 and we need to request five more to sign so that we can operationalise the scheme," she explained.
Among other questions raised were those concerning the halal food and services industry and incubation programmes for emerging industries.
