Report counterfeit items, property rights holders told

INTELLECTUAL property rights (IPR) holders must report to PNG Customs if they see counterfeit items on the streets, chief commissioner David Towe says.
He said Customs remained committed to controlling the importation of counterfeit goods into the country.
Towe said Customs had detected a couple of products on the market now and would inform the IPR owners.
Just this week, the operations manager of a Port Moresby nightclub Yip Chee Ming Sam appeared in the Waigani Committal Court accused of selling beer under a counterfeit trademark of South Pacific Brewery.
Towe said the first step was that the rights holders needed to register with Customs.
“This registration and recordation gives Customs the authority to intervene at the border if we suspect any potential counterfeit imports,” he said.
“When we sight a potential counterfeit we inform the rights holder who comes forward and confirms whether or not the import is a counterfeit.
“If it is a counterfeit we seize the goods and allow the rights holder to institute court proceedings.
“In collaboration with the owner, the goods are destroyed,” Towe said.
Meanwhile, the charge was read to Yip, 48, from Kuala Lumpur’s Perak village in Malaysia before Magistrate Paul Nii.
“Police allege that you knowingly used a 330ml green can beer that is not the one produced in this country. The one you sold is a counterfeit,”Magistrate Nii told Yip.
Police alleged that on Christmas Eve, information was received that there was a container filled with “fake green cans of beer” parked at the back of the club located at Section 38, Allotment 21 along the Waigani Drive.