These works shall be protected by the sole fact of their creation and irrespective of their mode or form of expression, as well as their content; quality and purpose.

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Derivative works consist of, including to particular:

• Translation, adaptation, arrangements and other transformations or modifications of works; and

• Collection of works, collection of mere data, whether in machines readable or other form, and collection of expressions of folklore, provided that such collections are original by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents.

The protection of these derivative works shall be without prejudice to any protection of a pre-existing work or expression of folklore incorporated in or utilized for making of such  a work.

Related rights mean rights of performers, producers of phonograms and broadcasting organizations to be protected.

The copyright shall be protected during the life of author and for fifty years after his or her death.  In case of a work of joint authorship, the economic rights shall be protected during the life of the last surviving author and for fifty years after his or her death.

The related rights shall be protected until the end of fiftieth calendar year following the year in which the performance is in absence of such a fixation, the phonogram has not been published, and from the moment when the broadcasting takes place.

“Individual or legal entity shall considered as an unlawful use of intellectual property of other person, if he or she is not authorized by the owner”.

“During the civil proceeding, the court shall have the authority to seize such acts proven infringement or create an effective deterrent to further infringement including to stop production or importation of products or goods, which are infringed intellectual property”.

“The owner of intellectual property shall be entitled to payment, by the infringer, of damages for the prejudice suffered as a consequence of the act of infringement, as well as the payment of expenses caused by the infringement, including legal costs.  The amount of damages shall be fixed in keeping with the relevant provisions of the Civil Code, taking into account the importance of the material and moral prejudice suffered by the owner of the right, as well as the importance of the infringer’s profits attributable to the infringement.  Where the infringer did not know or had no reasonable reason to know that he was engaged in infringing activity, the court may limit damages to the profit of the infringer attributable to the infringement and/or to pre-established damages”.

“Where infringing products or goods, the court shall have the authority to order the destruction or other reasonable disposition of those products or goods and their packaging outside the channels of commerce in such a manner as to avoid harm to the right holder, unless the owner of the right requests otherwise.  This provision shall not be applicable to products or goods and their packaging which were acquired by a third party in good faith” to commit or continue to commit acts of infringement, the court shall, whenever and to the extent that it is reasonable, order their destruction or other reasonable.

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“In keeping with the relevant provisions of the Penal Code and the Code on Criminal Procedure of Lao PDR, any infringement of a right protected under this Law, if committed willfully or by gross negligence and for profit-making purposes, shall be paid for a fine or punished by imprisonment for a period of between six months and two years, or by both.  The amount of the fine shall be fixed by the court, taking into particular account the defendant’s profits attributable to the infringement”.

The court shall have the authority to increase up to double the upper limit of the penalties specified above, where the defendant has been convicted for a new act of infringement within five years of a previous conviction for an infringement”.

The copyright and related rights law as well as other field of intellectual property in general is very essential for Lao PDR in term of WTO accession and bilateral cooperation on trade relation with the most developed countries, promotion of local invention and technology transfer, and also the main guidance of effective enforcement in particular any action against such act of infringement.

Lao PDR is developing the IP system by cooperating with WIPO to develop WIPO net project, automation to registration system of IP etc.; with ASEAN for common filing system on trademarks and patents and with others.

INSTITUTIONAL ORGANIZATION

Actually the activity of intellectual property is under the responsibility of the Department of Intellectual Property Standardization and Metrology (DIPSM) since 1993 under the National Authority for Science and Technology (NAST) of the Prime Minister’s Office.  The main responsibility of DIPSM is to advice the government through NAST on issues in the field of Intellectual Property, Quality, Standards, Testing and Metrology (IQSTM) management in the whole country.

In term of legislation on intellectual property DIPSM under NAST is a central management agency, and its functions are to prepare plans, laws, rules and regulations on IP and submit them to the higher authorities for approval; organize the supervision and centralize  the implementation of the approved laws, rules and regulations.

Lao IP Systems Structure (  Download )

DIPSM within NAST under the Prime Minister’s Office is the focal point responsible for the IP matters, but coordination with all related agencies of different Ministries is required especially for the implementation of the regulations, decrees and laws.

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ENFORCEMENT

In the past with regards to the enforcement of intellectual property rights the government provides both administrative and judicial procedures that permit the effective action against infringement of intellectual property rights.

For the dispute settlement by administrative procedure the petition or complaint shall be lodged to DIPSM, which is the focal point to contact with relevant authorities such as Department of Trade, Department of Customs, Economic Police and other to hear and consider data or information provided by parties concerned and the decision of a case will be based on the agreement of parties in writing and stated the reasons on which the decisions are based; and made available to the defendant for an appeal to the court if the case can not be agreed among them.

In term of trademarks the most infringement cases have been settled by administrative procedure or by the Department of Intellectual Property Standardization and Metrology (DIPSM) just only one case has been resolved by the Economic Conciliation Body under the Ministry of Justice and there is one complaint has been appealed the court.

The basic problem is that Lao judges are trained primarily to deal with criminal, family and civil tort matters, and have little experience or interest in handling commercial disputes, especially in IP infringement.  As a result, the courts often persuade the commercial disputants to seek other means of resolving their disputes, and if one party insists on court proceedings, then the court will often attempt to mediate or arbitrate the dispute instead of issuing judicial decisions.

The Lao court system is comprised of three levels of courts:  District Courts, Provincial Courts and the Supreme Court.  At present, Lao PDR has the separate Commercial Court, thus commercial disputes are heard by judges in charge of business issues at the District or Provincial Court level depending of the importance.  Judgments of the District Courts can be appealed to the provincial courts and then to the Supreme Court.  At the discretion of the National Assembly, certain important decisions of the Supreme Court can be appealed to the National Assembly.

For the enforcement of intellectual property rights at the border in case of the importation of trademark counterfeit goods, a complaint should be lodged also to DIPSM, which is going to communicate with authorities concerned to deal with the prompt investigation.  After consideration DIPSM shall inform the complainer within a reasonable period whether the petition was accepted and, if so, the period for which the custom administration will take action for suspension or release of such goods into free circulation.  Of course the defendant has the right to show necessary evidences to DIPSM to be reconsidered or to appeal to the Economic Reconciliation Body or court for resolution settlement.

Awaiting full enforcement procedure of comprehensive Intellectual Property Law, the provisory enforcement on copyright and related rights has been done in accordance with the Ministry of Information and Culture Decree No 715/ IC dated 13 November 2001 on Copyright, in particular an association of Laotian composers has been established under the auspice of Ministry of Culture and Information, and it role is to protect the legitimate interest of composers, especially how their works could be protected from any act of infringement.  For example in term of phonogram such product or cassette before releasing to market shall be fixed by special stamp to mark a genuine product.  If it is found that any product has been proven infringement, due to relevant regulation issued by the Ministry of Culture the infringer shall be subjected to pay for a fine more that 300,000 Kips (30 US$) per cassette, and if it’s not agreeable the case shall be appealed to the court for civil remedy.

Fake “JET” Cigarettes Case

The owner of the registered trademark applied the Petition, through his lawyer (Patent Attorney) to the President of NAST where the DIPSM is under.  The petition included all detail documents regarding the infringement, requesting the Laos Government to take necessary measures against the fake cigarettes by destroying them.

Soon after, DIPSM investigated and reported back to the President of NAST, who then reported to the Prime Minister Office.

The Prime Minister Office decided to destroy by allowing the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Finances to execute.

 The Custom and Police at the Border between Laos and Vietnam confiscated the fake  cigarettes as these were the transited goods between Laos and Vietnam.

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce ordered the provincial office of Trade to cooperate with concerned authorities to destroy the confiscated fake cigarettes.

Fake cigarettes “JET” were destroyed by the task force committee.

This case is one of the biggest cases in Laos, the fake cigarettes worth not less than US Dollars 600,000 (Six Hundred Thousands US$).

Fake Cotton Yarn Case

This case was resolved by the arbitration organized by the Arbitration Board under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. The Arbitration Board decided that the infringer stop the importation and distribution of the fake cotton yarn product.

Commercial disputants are often advised to submit their disputes to the Arbitration Board.  The Decree on the Resolution of Economic Disputes (“Arbitration Decree’) governs the arbitration process at the Arbitration Board.  Under the terms of the Arbitration Decree, any decision of the Arbitration Board is appeal able to the courts.

The most effective enforcement in all fields of intellectual property, the most pre-requisite task is how to strengthen the public awareness or how to make them to be more aware about their benefit from the protection of intellectual property, because Laotian people are still facing with several difficulties caused by different conditions of least developed world, and actually the cost of genuine goods in compare with fake product is a big difference, therefore sometime they still have doubt that the protection of intellectual property is an obstacle of their livelihood.

Fake Colgate Tooth Paste and Sunsilk Shampoo Case

Three manufacturers producing in Laos, the counterfeit products, infringing the registered trademarks of Colgate Palmolive and Unilever, were arrested at the end of 2008, by Economic Police and large quantity of raw materials, chemicals, packaging materials, finished products, machines, trucks, and cash were seized. After investigation and interrogation within three months, the Economic Police issued a report stating the violation of some laws especially the Law on Intellectual Property by the three infringers. Then the case was submitted to the Public Prosecutor to appeal to the court. This case is the most serious, as it concerns the damages claims by the trademarks owners and the criminal sanction.

Main Criteria  for Future Perspectives on Implementation of IP Laws

Development of human resources can be carried out by educational and training activities in order to increase professional skills and effective management competency of officers from IPO and Enforcement Agencies for basic understanding of IP laws and relevant information both in theory and practice.  Education and training are held on both national and foreign basis, in particular some of training are offered in different form and different level through teaching, seminars, workshops, round table-meetings and symposia. 

For higher authorities such as policy makers the study visit program is very essential and useful for them to see what is happen outside the benefit of intellectual property protection in term of socio-economic development.

The main contribution of public to a success for effective implementation of IP law depends on the level of public awareness in particular among users.  You may be aware that people of developing or lest developed country are still poor but their hobby is very high similar to it of people from developed world, because everybody would listen to good interesting music and watching very enjoying audio-visual works both inside country and from overseas, in this case if there are not aware about the counterfeiting products, which are very harmful to the economic development of country with regard to international obligation such as the accession to WTO, foreign investment, technology transfer, incentive motivation for local innovation etc, therefore it is a big potential for them to use rather a very cheap fake product.

The promotion of public awareness could be undertaken by difference events such as: set up a curriculum of intellectual property for different level of national education system; organize an outreach program for every sector of society by different program such as concert, innovation contest for intellectual property etc.

One of effective implementation of IP law, to some extent, depends on close contact and constant dialogue between IPO and user as the owner of intellectual property to exchange of information and how to battle against piracy.  User could assist IPO for a highly visible campaign on public education, which will be persistently undertaken since part of the problem of piracy is the perceived public ignorance.  Thus with sustained efforts to educate the public about the importance of copyright protection, the demand for pirated and counterfeit products is hoped to decline once the value of respecting and protecting intellectual property in general of creative individuals had been installed in the mind of everybody.

As you know the emergency of a new global economy, fueled by rapid development in technology and worldwide communication systems has brought intellectual property into the mainstream of economic, social, cultural and technological policies and program in many countries.  The information technology – based Internet connects all nations tightly and integrated the global economy into a network economy, therefore the basic automation to IPO is essential for exchange of information on enforcement of IP law among IPOs of region and in the world, the information system is needed to be established and make available to the public to reach different kind of news in particular relating to the piracy of copyright works.

Cooperation among countries in the region as well as cooperation with WIPO and other international IPOs will be desirable by exchange of experiences on best practices in the fight against piracy, sharing data and enforcement, exchange in term of training and technical assistance, and closer coordination and cooperation among customs officials to prevent the free circulation of counterfeit or pirated goods.

The corner stone of effective protection of IP right through IP law depends on the appropriate system for implementation therefore for time-being IPOs around the world are seeking the best way how the law, which has been enacted could be implemented and enforced successfully.

For effective implementation, the most important measure among others is the public awareness, which is needed to be promoted and to have some understanding about the necessity of protection.  The good result of enforcement relies on that not only the Officers of IPO in respective country, rather a large number of Senior Government Offices, Policy makers and Users, but also the highest contribution of owners.

Actually, the piracy is a trans-boundary manner, a case occurs in one country maybe shifted to others, some problems may probably occur exclusively in one country and other problem may be shared in the region or in the world, therefore the regional and international cooperation should be strengthened, and for effective elaboration in term of enforcement the harmonized system in particular legislation is also needed to be established.

As you know the world economy is speeding up towards the direction of free trade and economy globalization the latest important agreement for the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well as the TRIPS Agreement, which is stipulating the protection of intellectual property into standard or mandating new multinational standards of intellectual property protection and enforcement, therefore numerous countries should reach it with the time limit by year 2001 for developing country and year 2006 for least developed country like Lao PDR.  The acceptance of a universal system would be impossible by the absence of harmonization of IP law.

The effective use of intellectual property system will promote creativity and inventiveness parallel with the optimal use of human and other resources will contribute significantly to sustainable national prosperity and to ensuring a more competitive and secure market place in the global market.  As a result, intellectual property protection is an indispensable element for commercialization of new developments worldwide.  Therefore the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights are internal needs and have never been so important as they are today.

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