Among the activities agreed to in the Programme were measures to enhance and strengthen intellectual property enforcement, protection, administration, legislation and activities to promote public awareness as well as private sector participation. Recognizing the different degrees of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) development in ASEAN, the Member Countries agreed that the programme explore the possibility of setting up an ASEAN Patent and Trademark System as a long term objective and that it could extend beyond 1998. The participation of Member Countries in this programme is on a voluntary basis.

Apart from improving the efficiency of IPR administration of Member Countries through new legislation, computerization, enforcement and human resource development, ASEAN recognized that the private sector and the public at large also need to be involved in the inculcation of IPR awareness, as enshrined in the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Intellectual Property Cooperation. A private-sector ASEAN Intellectual Property Association (AIPA) was officially inaugurated on 1 December 1996 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. AIPA was granted the status of an ASEAN-affiliated NGO in March 1997.

ASEAN has also been pursuing IPR cooperative activities with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), European Union and Japan with a view to achieving the objectives in Table 7.

IPR cooperation activities with WIPO were undertaken based on annual ASEAN-WIPO Consultative Meetings. The 1997-1998 activities were approved by the Fourth ASEAN-WIPO Consultative Meeting held in September 1996 in Geneva. For the period under review, two roundtable sessions were held, the ASEAN-WIPO Regional Roundtable on Intellectual Property Cooperation TRIPs Agreement held in August 1996 in Chiangmai and the ASEAN-WIPO Sub-Regional Round-table on the Implications of AFTA to the Intellectual Property Systems of the ASEAN Member Countries, held in May 1997 at the ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta.

The ASEAN-EC Patent and Trademark Programme (ECAP) ended in June 1997. This programme was launched in September 1993 to promote economic exchanges between ASEAN and the EU countries by strengthening and modernizing the industrial property system in the participating countries. To coordinate the activities of the programme, a regional unit has been set up in Jakarta. An ASEAN PAT CD-ROM which contains bibliographical data and abstracts of patent applications of all ASEAN Member Countries went into production. An ASEAN-EU Experts Group Meeting on Intellectual Property was held in June 1997 in Brussels to identify future areas of cooperation. The Experts Group also discussed the newly established ASEAN-EC Regional Cooperation Programme on Intellectual Property Rights which aims to upgrade the Intellectual Property System of the ASEAN Member Countries for increased trade and investment of both sides.

On-going efforts have been made to pursue human resources development in the area of intellectual property under the ASEAN-Japan Intellectual Property Cooperation Programme. With the successful implementation of activities identified under the Programme of Action and under the cooperation programmes with WIPO, EU and Japan will ensure that all ASEAN countries will eventually establish and maintain an efficient IPR administration system that conforms to international standards and norms. Effective IPR protection in the region will support the objectives of AFTA by assuring the owners of technology that the most recent developments brought into the region will be protected. This, in turn, will encourage foreign investors to introduce state-of-the-art manufacturing technology in the region.