The government is set to amend the Patent Act in the new year to reduce the long wait for patent registration and improve the patentability and enforceability of petty patents, as well as introduce profit-sharing in local communities.
Mr Thosapone said a raft of measures are underway to streamline the patent process and significantly bolster intellectual property protections in Thailand.
Thosapone Dansuputra, newly-appointed director-general of the Intellectual Property Department, said the department's officials are amending the existing Patent Act to cut time and procedures for patent registration to only three years from five years now.
The amendments will also take into account profit-sharing for local communities so that any profits generated from folk wisdom will be of benefit to the source.
The officials are also consulting various countries to avoid unnecessary duplication of work among patent examiners and enhance patent examination efficiency and quality.
For instance, after work-sharing is agreed upon, there will be no need for repeated examination in Thailand once patent registration applications have already passed through the examination of Japan's intellectual property office.
Nonetheless, Mr Thosapone said Thailand still needs to re-examine the registration applications for patents which are related to plant varieties and animals as Thailand's Patent Act does not cover these areas.
Plant varieties are supervised by the Plant Varieties Act, handled by the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry.
Mr Thosapone said in 2017 Thailand needs to change domestic patent law to make it comply with the Doha Declaration on Trips (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and forward Thailand's accession to The Hague Agreement, the pact that allows applicants to register a design in any number of participating countries by filing a single application.
The Doha Declaration refers to several aspects of Trips, including the right to grant compulsory licenses and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which licences are granted, the right to determine what constitutes a national emergency and the circumstances of extreme urgency, and the freedom to establish the regime of exhaustion of intellectual property rights.
The Trips Agreement allows the use of compulsory licences. Compulsory licensing enables a competent government authority to license the use of a patented invention to a third party or government agency without the consent of the patent-holder. Article 31 of the agreement sets forth a number of conditions for the granting of compulsory licences. These include a case-by-case determination of compulsory licence applications, the need to demonstrate prior (unsuccessful) negotiations with the patent owner for a voluntary licence and the payment of adequate remuneration to the patent holder.
Where compulsory licences are granted to address a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency, certain requirements are waived in order to hasten the process, such as that for the need to have had prior negotiations to obtain a voluntary licence from the patent holder.
Although the agreement refers to some of the possible grounds (such as emergency and anticompetitive practices) for issuing compulsory licences, it leaves members full freedom to stipulate other grounds, such as those related to non-working of patents, public health or the public interest. The Doha Declaration states that each member has the right to grant compulsory licences and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licences are granted.
Mr Thosapone said the government is also committed to having Thailand removed next year from the US's Priority Watch List for intellectual property, saying that responsible authorities have continued their efforts to tackle intellectual property (IP) violations.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha himself has ordered state officials to speed up the crackdown on digital piracy, especially transactions using popular social media such as Facebook and at weekend markets.
As part of the strategy to tackle digital piracy, the government in August approved a 20-year IP reform roadmap, featuring action plans for the short, medium and long terms.
The short-term action plan calls for the government to have Thailand removed from the Priority Watch List next April through new enforcement measures.
The roadmap spanning 2018-21 covers support for Thais to develop their own intellectual property as well as measures to protect against and suppress IP violations. It also calls for establishing a new environment that stimulates IP creation, the commercialisation of IP, law enforcement and the promotion of geographical indication.
The plan entails more spending on research and development and the creation of an IP database. Efforts will also be made to raise awareness of the harm caused by using pirated products.
The national IP policy committee chaired by Gen Prayut also approved the long-term reform plan and the action plans, which will be jointly implemented by Thai authorities and their US counterparts.
As a short-term measure, authorities are working closely with the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc), the Department of Special Investigation and the national police to clamp down on piracy, notably in red zones and notorious markets nationwide.
The red zone includes MBK Centre, Pantip Plaza, Khlong Thom, Baan Mor, Sukhumvit Road and Patpong in Bangkok; markets in Chiang Mai and Phuket; and Rong Klua market on the Thai-Cambodian Border.
The government aims to eradicate IP infringements in these venues by 2021.