Mary King
The bill dealing with trademarks was passed in the Senate last week. The Minister of Planning told us that it was necessary to replace the 1950 Trademarks Act so that in today's economy we can both protect business from, for example, the digital music pirates and, of importance, support an economic diversification thrust.
Such an act will allow us to properly exploit our products and services, our inventions both locally and internationally. Indeed, the place of inventiveness and innovation is paramount in today's march to produce businesses that are globally competitive; and similarly in T&T, to produce such businesses in the on-shore economy.
According to Senator Faris Al-Rawi, it is important that the institutions that manage and monitor the use of, not only trademarks, but patents, copyrights and other IP rights, should be properly funded.
The Senator compared the amount spent by the AG's office on foreign attorneys with the miniscule sum spent on the local Intellectual Property Office of the Ministry of Legal Affairs.
Senator Shamfa Cudjoe from Tobago also remarked on the absence of such facilities (IPO) in Tobago and the Minister of Legal Affairs promised to correct this within a fortnight.
There is indeed a need for local institutions that deal with IP rights; so is the responsibility of the local IP office, also supported by staff of the WIPO assigned locally to the Ministry of Legal Affairs.
However, there are other institutions that would be needed if this government were really engaged in the diversification of the economy; in encouraging and producing firms that can build new and high quality goods and services generated by knowledge, inventiveness and innovation.
Given both the on-shore market failures (eg the inability of the economy to allocate savings to higher risk and quality investments) and the historical rigidity of the business sector to venture also into such higher risk and quality activities, the only way forward, even advised by the literature of the IDB, is for a government intervention along the lines of the Triple Helix.
Such an approach I have been discussing in the media for years as the Innovation Diamond, a local interpretation of the Helix.
In this incarnation of the Helix, IP plays a fundamental role and though its centres of excellence would support traditional incremental innovative ideas the major thrust would be, as advised by Prof Anthony Clayton of UWI, to develop products and services based on disruptive innovative break-throughs.
Government's help, as the venture capitalist of last resort, will see the State as the owner of the IP developed. Hence two of the major institutions that define the Diamond are the IP and marketing/market development organisations.
The role of the IP organisation would be separate and distinct from that of the IP office of the Ministry of Legal Affairs. This organisation would be the depository of the government owned IP, keep it current as regards the international bodies, license it where necessary, manage the IP-based shareholding in the new companies and be the recipient of income from the exploitation of such IP licensing and sale of start ups (IPOs).
The government owned G-Pan patent sits in the AG's office and whether it is being maintained or exploited is anyone's guess, since there was a comment from that office that the upkeep fees for the patent were to be discontinued, putting the G-Pan IP into the public domain.
This government is performing on the periphery of the diversification of the economy. Updated IP legislation, of all kinds, is required (patents, copyright, trademarks etc). This indeed will also facilitate the foreign products and services on sale in T&T.
However, the fundamentals of our diversification effort demand the production and export of new goods and services whose IP would have to be protected by our laws in conjunction with WIPO inter-relationships.
The current diversification thrust in T&T seems to be putting the cart before the horse. We are enacting some of the required laws with respect to IP protection but absolutely nothing is being done about generating the disruptive IP, which we will need to protect, that can provide the higher risk and quality products and services necessary for our diversification.
Our history shows that the on-shore private sector is incapable of 'stepping up to the wicket' and building these products and services on its own. Yet, according to Prof Ricardo Hausmann, this sector is performing on the sparse periphery of the global product space and cannot, unaided, make the economic jump to such a wicket.
Building a productive economy in an economy of market failures is a systematic and experimental learning process and the current national ad-hoc ventures do nothing to achieve touted goals.