One Stop Filing for Thai Trademarks

The Intellectual Property Department is working on a plan for Thailand to adopt the Madrid Protocol - the statement allowing trademark-owners to have their trademarks protected in several countries by filing one application directly in their national or regional trademark office.

Seventy-five countries have joined the protocol so far, according to the World Intellectual Property Organisation website. "This will facilitate trademark protection and is in line with Asean's plan to have all members adopt the protocol by 2015," said Puangrat Asavapisit, the department's director-general.

According to Pajchima Thanasanti, director of the Trademark Office, this will sharply increase the department's fee income as trademark registration currently accounts for more than half the department's total income.

In the 2007 fiscal year, the department received a budget of Bt189 million, but its income was Bt365 million.

Pajchima said that Thailand joining the Madrid Protocol would encourage foreigners to come to the Thai office instead of going to Singapore.

She noted that the protocol would chiefly benefit small and medium-sized enterprises, which would no longer need to register their trademarks in every country where their products were marketed, a process that can be time-consuming and costly.

For Thailand to join the protocol, the department will need to seek legal amendments to the intellectual-property laws, as it did for the Kingdom to join the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and the Paris Convention. The PCT offers protection for inventions through a single patent filing, and the Paris Convention offers industrial property protection to member countries.

The previous government had endorsed the draft law to accommodate PCT, but it will be enacted only after approval from the Council of State.

The Intellectual Property Department is seriously considering turning itself into a self-regulatory body to increase its flexibility in resource management amid rising demand for protection.

After Thailand adopts the Patent Cooperation Treaty and the Madrid Protocol, which allow single applications for patent and trademark protection in all member countries, more businesses are expected to file applications at the Thai office.

Director-general Puangrat Asavapisit said last week that her department's Bt365 million  income could cover last year'sexpenses of Bt189 million, so the department could be financially independent like its counterparts in Malaysia and the Philippines. Thailand has only 16 officers to handle IP applications, against 72 in Malaysia, 2,800 in China and 4,000 in the United States.

Without new recruitment, its backlog will pile up. In 2007 alone, the department took in 6,818 applications and, given the current headcount, it will take three years to process the 18,000 filings pending.

"As a government agency, we're now under the bureaucratic system and there's no leeway in managing the workforce," she said. With greater flexibility, the outstanding cases could be cleared in a year to give room for additional applications following the implementation of the PCT, she said. She based her projection on the success achieved by the two other countries.

The department has commissioned a feasibility study while waiting for the green light. Meanwhile, the department will need to educate the public of the change.

Once the Cabinet approves the scheme, a law to facilitate the process is felt to be necessary. Altogether, the department expects the process to take two years.