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"Development of law in Asia: divergence versus convergence." [2007] ELECD 308; in Torremans, Paul (ed), "Copyright Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Copyright Law

Editor(s): Torremans, Paul

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845424879

Section: Chapter 16

Section Title: Development of law in Asia: divergence versus convergence.

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

16 Development of law in Asia: divergence
versus convergence. Copyright piracy and
the prosecution of copyright offences and
the adjudication of IP cases: is there a need
for a special IP court in Malaysia?
Ida Madieha bt. Abdul Ghani Azmi1



Introduction
The TRIPS Agreement has brought about the harmonization of substantive
intellectual property laws in WTO member countries, Asia included.
Malaysia,2 being a developing country, amended all its intellectual property
(IP) laws and introduced new rights to comply with the Agreement in late
1999. To that extent, the degree of divergence between member countries on
substantive IP rights has been substantially reduced. However, in certain
instances, divergence still exists. One such area is the adjudication of intellec-
tual property cases. In some countries, such as Indonesia and Thailand, special
IP courts have been established to provide standardized procedure for the
hearing of IP disputes. This is despite the fact that the TRIPS Agreement
explicitly does not mandate for the establishment of such special courts. In
Malaysia, the increasing backlog of IP cases before the courts has pushed the
Government to introduce a specialized IP court.
This chapter attempts to investigate the problems of piracy in Malaysia and
examines the actual problem of prosecuting IP offences in Malaysia. It
explores all the legislative mechanisms available in Malaysia to assist the
enforcement authorities in their effort to stamp out piracy. The important
provisions of these statutes will be examined in determining their effective-
ness. Understandably, a discussion of this nature would ...