Intellectual Property Association of Bangladesh

Intellectual Property Association of Bangladesh (IPAB) was established and registered under Government license to work on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues as a common platform for all relevant stakeholders in Bangladesh. Apart from IPR awareness development, IPAB provides support to the concerned stakeholders for protecting IP owners' rights, consumers' rights and Government's rights. The IP Association is governed by its Executive Committee which consists of high level intellectuals of the society. Four relevant ministries nominated their representative in the Executive Committee of IPAB i.e. Ministry of Industries (Registrar of DPDT, proposed), Ministry of Cultural Affairs (Registrar of Copyrights Office, proposed), Ministry of Commerce (DG, WTO Cell) and Ministry of Home Affairs (Joint Secretary, Political). In association with local, multinational and international sponsors, IPAB has organized a number of public-private dialogues (on the role of Department of Patent Design and Trademark, NBR and International Organizations), trainings, workshops, seminars and roundtable discussions (specially on growing trend of counterfeit in Bangladesh and its effects on the growth of national economy and consumer rights). Some of our corporate members like MJL Bangladesh, Unilever Bangladesh, BAT Bangladesh, Square Pharmaceuticals, NOKIA, Orascom Telecom Bangladesh, Marico Bangladesh, BEXIMCO Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline and reputed IP law firms have provided their extensive support towards this Association. Among international organizations, IPAB has already been in touch with WTO, US AID, Swiss IP Institute and WIPO for implementing IPR projects such as IP training, awareness campaign, dialogue and others. Since last year, IFC and USPTO have started their support to the Association. The Government of Switzerland has approved the Bangladesh-Swiss Intellectual Property Project (BSIP) for three years from 2012. The Project will pursue a three-pronged strategy - Strengthening the Policy Environment, IP Support Services and Promoting the Use of IPRs in parallel. These responses are encouraging for establishing IP awareness in Bangladesh. IPAB has a significant role for the IPR roadmap as well as development of IP Policy in order to resolve IPR issues in the country.