Thailand will next year launch an online arbitration service for intellectual property disputes in a bid to make the country a regional hub for settling such issues.
The introduction of the new service from Jan 1 is the result of a collaboration between the Commerce and Justice ministries.
Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit and Justice Minister Somsak Thepsuthin yesterday signed an MoU to confirm the birth of the project.
Also present were Boonyarit Kalayanamit, permanent secretary for the Commerce Ministry, Vuttikrai Leewiraphan, director-general of the Department of Intellectual Property (DoI) and Pasit Asawawattanaporn, director of Thailand Arbitration Center (TAC), which is within the Justice Ministry.
"Protection of intellectual property rights is a crucial element in trade development as it is the basis of adding value to products," Mr Jurin said. "Yet, there has been been a surge of violations of intellectual property rights so the DoI needs to use a mediation process to settle the disputes instead of having them end up as lawsuits."
Mr Somsak said the project was a step towards achieving the Justice Ministry's goal to make Thailand a "regional hub for arbitration".
Over the past 18 years, there have been 621 lawsuits on copyright infringements, especially related to patents and commercial trademarks. While acting as a mediator, however, the DoI has managed to settle 54% of such disputes, significantly reducing the burden on the civil courts.
Nevertheless, adjudications still take up a great deal of the DoI's time, with all involved needing to travel to its office in Nonthaburi just to file documents and then wait 1-2 months before the mediation can even start. From 2021 parties will be able to submit documents online and negotiate by video conference.
Mr Vuttikrai, director-general of DoI, said the most time-consuming part of the process was booking in-person appointments because this was so difficult to arrange, moving this online would save a great deal of time and effort.
Mr Vuttikrai of the Commerce Ministry insisted people's privacy would be protected. "The parties will be obliged to sign an agreement to keep the contract and related information as classified information," he said. "This will prevent them from using this information to file lawsuits or using it in any other arbitrary courts in future."