A solid base of intellectual property rights will drive innovation

If you've ever explored the answer to the question of why—despite being promising sectors in entertainment a decade or two ago—the movies and music scene in Bangladesh never quite took off, someone might scream "piracy" back at you. Piracy has plagued creative content production in Bangladesh for a long time, but with the proliferation of the internet, it has taken on new dimensions. All reputed broadband internet service providers offer some sort of FTP (file transfer protocol) server, where movies, music, TV shows, video games, e-books, and software from home and abroad are available free of cost (besides what you pay monthly to your internet providers). Torrent sites are easily available in Bangladesh as well, allowing users to access an even wider range of copyrighted content that they would otherwise not be able to consume. This means that local producers are always at the risk of having their content leaked on the internet via channels that make it impossible to make any money off of them. Taking away the monetary incentive from creative pursuits only serves to discourage people from running after their passions, thereby creating what many of us call "dead" scenes.

Popular culture and entertainment products are possibly the most direct way in which we interact with intellectual property (IP), and realise the effects of poor protection of IP rights. But IP is a broad concept, essentially referring to any creation that is a result of human originality. From artistic endeavours like movies, music, literature, and video games to business creations like brands, trademarks, and industrial designs; everything falls under IP, which means that if a country suffers from a weak IP regime, it can throttle growth and innovation on multiple fronts. The theme for IP day 2024, "IP and the SDGs: Building Our Common Future with Innovation and Creativity," drives home this point with a more positive spin.

IP rights protection can encourage innovation and entrepreneurial enthusiasm on a large scale, creating the right environment for humanity as a whole to pursue these sustainable development goals. IP rights ensure that an innovator's fuel for driving change is not only limited to their passion and ingenuity, but also includes the promise that their innovation will lead to acknowledgment in the form of royalties or public recognition.

Considering the theme for this year's IP day with more specificity, it's clear that innovation will be the key to achieving the sweeping goals that are encompassed by the SDGs, such as the goals related to hunger, education, healthcare, employment, clean water, infrastructure, urban planning, and the climate. For example, the Covid pandemic threw the process of developing greater access to education into overdrive, and massive strides were made in cultivating innovative online education platforms. Similar developments took place in healthcare, in creating platforms to enable remote employment, and in urban planning measures that prioritised human interaction within neighbourhoods over mobility. But relying on stupefying global catastrophes to drive innovation is not a sustainable strategy. In times of relative peace and calm, individuals and organisations need to be incentivised to innovate, to take risks, to build solutions that don't take us forward by only a step, but by leaps and bounds. A strong framework of IP rights protections is the basis for creating these incentives, to ensure innovators that their hard work won't go unrewarded.

Bangladesh's own legal framework around intellectual property can be described as a work in progress. Key steps have been taken through the recent passage of key legislations related to IP, namely the Bangladesh Industry-Design Bill, 2023, the Copyright Act, 2023, and Bangladesh Patents Bill, 2023. While it's encouraging to see forward movement by the government to build upon the previously existing IP rights regime, it remains to be seen how effective they will be in curbing the problems of the past.

What is clear is that, moving forward, IP rights awareness needs to be heightened, the existing legal framework must be implemented, and it should be made easy for businesses to access IP rights protection if violations take place. Local innovators, as well as foreign investors, need to feel confident that their intellectual property will not be stolen or exploited in Bangladesh. And even if that happens, they need to feel assured that they have a legal recourse to pursue damages.

The United States Trade Representative's (USTR) 2024 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE), published last month, includes a chapter on Bangladesh which points to IP violations as a major problem, among other issues. The report mentions counterfeit and pirated goods, IP violations in fast-moving consumer goods, apparel, pharmaceuticals, and software. The lack of expertise among law enforcement agencies to pursue IP rights violations and reluctance to investigate them is also mentioned. The report suggests better coordination among stakeholders and enforcement authorities to strengthen Bangladesh's IP regime.

The path forward for Bangladesh as a country is forked many times over, but it is for certain that the paths that lead to a healthy economy post our LDC graduation, the paths where we succeed or at least get close to achieving the SDGs, the paths where we make the the most of our demographic dividend, are all paths where the importance of IP rights has been recognised on a national level. The development of local manufacturing and industries, and the likelihood of significant foreign investment in our economy in the future both depend on a strong IP regime. The protection of IP rights is how we can ensure that Bangladeshi innovators do not have to constantly look over their shoulders wondering if their hard work is in vain, but can look forward to changing the world one innovation at a time.

Azmin Azran is digital features coordinator at The Daily Star.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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