LAHORE: Speakers at a seminar organised by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) here on Saturday underlined the need of developing awareness about Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) amongst the general masses as the existing level of piracy and copyright violation may invite trade restrictions as well as flight of foreign investment from Pakistan.

It was the crux of speeches made at the seminar organised by Lahore Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Small and Medium Entrepreneur Development Authority (SMEDA), which was second of a series of seminars organised in the provincial metropolis.

The seminar was predominantly a family affair as President LCCI, who is also one of the directors of Irfan Textile Mills made the introductory speech while his younger brother Hasan Irfan Khan who is a leading Intellectual Property Rights expert, made three detailed presentations on the issue.

Irfan Textile mills are the local owners of more than 20 international brands of different multi national companies.

Increasing imitation, piracy and violation of copyright has disturbed many of the companies engaged in the manufacturing of international brands in the country.

Speaking on the occasion, LCCI president, Yawar Irfan Khan, said that businessmen should be educated with the perspective of technology development as Information Technology and Bio Technology are new buzzwords of the current and future development.

Both domains allow enough room for creativity to software engineers and bio technologists respectively.

He said that thrust of law makers in the government should not be just an understanding of law from the point of view of avoiding misuse of IPRs, but should also concentrate upon the scenario, where a local product developer is facilitated by the aforementioned sections of the society in the art of optimum benefit to the creator.

He said that developing societies like Pakistan have been characterised by a sort of skepticism about the laws framed in the developed economies.

We have to make efforts to arrest this trend, and a positive mindset would help us understand the issues without any prejudice and find the best way possible.

Speaking about emphatic implementation of Intellectual Property Rights laws, Syed Muhammad Bilal and Hasan Irfan Khan pointed out lacunae which were hampering the penalisation of those involved in IPR and copyrights violations.

They said that the government should pay immediate heed to effective implementations of laws because IPR violations are as bad as any other violation of law including dacoity and murder.