Dubai Customs, in the presence of business partners, legal firms representatives and media persons organized its annual celebration of the World Intellectual Property Rights Day - 2013 under the theme of ‘‘Creativity.. Upcoming Generation’’. During the celebration, schools and universities winners of Dubai Customs IPR Awards were honored. Salma Bint Guais led first and the second position owned by Vision Primary & Secondary School, followed by AL Salam Primary & Secondary School in the third place. At the level of universities, Ajman University for Sciences and Technology gained the first position while Khalifa School for Science and Technology – Abu Dhabi branch- got the second place and the third place owned by the United Arab Emirates University
Mr./ Yousif AL Sahlawi, Senior Executive Director of Corporate Affairs at Dubai Customs, in his speech said: ‘‘we strongly believe in the rights of producers, innovators and intellectual people’ creativity in different domains, industrial, commercial and copyrights, meanwhile, since long time, we took the priority of the IPR into consideration and consistently sought to combat all forms of commercial fraud and counterfeit activities by interdicting attempts for smuggling fake goods and tampering with trademarks’’
AL Sahlawi reiterated that ‘‘our keenness in Dubai Customs on protecting the rights of intellectual properties by adopting accurate implementations of world class practices for maintaining these rights protection, is targeted to ensure protection of consumers and provision of supplies in conformity with international specifications which recognize all health and environment requirements, besides, we also seek to prevent rights of producers from potential risks of faking his products or counterfeiting his trademarks, bearing this in mind, Dubai Customs seizures of infringing fake goods reported at 750 seizures in 2011 – 2012, with total value exceeding 50ms dirhams, including, several types of contrabands such as electronics, mobiles, clothes, watches, cigarettes etc.’’
On the other hand, AL Sahlawi, asserted that Dubai Customs gave much concern in terms of training its Customs officers on detecting fake goods to enable them to foil any attempt of smuggling such goods- whether entering to the local use or moving through Dubai to local or international markets. Meanwhile, Customs officers are provided with all latest advanced technical methods to successfully carry out their tasks. He assured.
AL Sahlawi, explained that ‘‘ our role is not only confined to combating smuggling of fraud goods, but also we seek to spread awareness in the community about the necessity of protecting rights of intellectual properties through launching a series of continued workshops we organize to different sectors, the latest of these workshops was the one which concluded its sessions yesterday and attended by 31 participating entity and organization from government and private sectors. Through these workshops, we seek to qualify all participants to enable them thwarting commercial fraud and counterfeit, besides, making them aware about the fraud risks, moreover, we organize ‘Dubai Customs IPR Competition’’ for different government and private schools across the UAE with aim of spreading awareness about these rights protection amongst upcoming generations’’ he explained
At the international level Dubai Customs participates actively in the development of IP protection mechanisms through the application of Dubai Declaration issued at the 4th international conference on combating forgery and piracy hosted by Dubai in 2008. The conference recommended stronger punishments against violators of all forms of trademarks and coordination between world countries over consolidating inter-governments cooperation in combating all forms of intellectual piracy operations, on which Dubai Customs has been working over the past years.
WIPO underlined in the speech of its Director General Francis Gurry on this occasion delivered by Ms. Mahboba Baqer, Manager of Awareness and Education Section of IPR Department at Dubai Customs that whoever we are, wherever we live, whatever our circumstances, we all have the capacity to create. And it is this human creativity and inventiveness that is responsible for improving our quality of life in every sphere: our medical care, our transport, our communication, our entertainment. The aim of intellectual property is to promote conditions that help this creativity and innovative capacity flourish across the world.
WIPO message added that “On World IP Day we encourage people to reflect the role of intellectual property in our changing world. we believe there is a certain innovation in intellectual property. What it does is create a unique incentive for investment in research and development, in innovation, and in cultural creation and production. Our challenge is to ensure that the conditions for access are fair and balanced, so that the benefits are widespread, and so that it fosters a truly dynamic, creative global society in which the next generation will thrive.
Mr. Yousef Al Sahlawi, Senior Executive Director of Corporate Affairs at Dubai Customs gave out the prizes and shields to winners of Dubai Customs IPR Contest”
The Ministry of Education being the most cooperative government entity with Dubai Customs at IPR level was honoured as well.
The honouring included “Al Tamimi and Co. for Advocacy and legal Consultancy being the most legal firm that lodges complaints relating to infringement upon IPR and Abu Ghazala Intellectual Property being the office that most recorded trademarks in 2012.
Jebel Ali Customs Center was honoured being the centre that seized most of IPR cases within 2012.
A special honoring was given to Mr. Yousef Auzair Director of Human resources and Advisor Khalid Al Nour from Dubai Customs.