Power Simon: Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2475] 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 I move  
That the Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee for consideration. Trademarks are an important intellectual property right and a key business asset. A trademark is a unique identifier such as a word brand or logo that distinguishes the goods or services of one trader from those supplied by other traders. Trademarks enable consumers to instantly recognise and associate the quality of a particular good or service with a business that uses the trademark. One of the aims of giving legal protection to trademarks is to prevent low-quality firms or counterfeiters from passing off their products as being those produced by well-known high-quality producers. Trademarks are registered by the Commissioner of Trade Marks under the Trade Marks Act 2002 after an examination process. 
This bill has three main purposes. The first is to ensure that New Zealand is able to join three international trademark treaties. In 2006 the then Government agreed to pursue accession to three treaties administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization. These are the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Is India covered by that? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: —that is a good question—the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks and the Madrid protocol relating to the Madrid agreement. The bill makes a number of changes to the Trade Marks Act to enable New Zealand to implement the requirements of each of those treaties and therefore to be able to join the treaties. 
Although each treaty has its own particular objectives their collective aim is to reduce business compliance costs associated with protecting trademarks. This is achieved through the simplification and international harmonisation of the procedures for registering trademarks. Joining these treaties will also assist in moving New Zealand’s trademark registration procedures into closer alignment with Australia’s. It therefore represents a further step towards the Government’s objective of creating a single economic market with Australia—an important objective which I know my predecessor shared the same level of enthusiasm for advancing. 
The second purpose of the bill is to deter trafficking in counterfeit goods and pirated copyright works by strengthening the enforcement of criminal offences under the Copyright Act and the Trade Marks Act. The trade in goods bearing counterfeit trademarks and pirated copyright works is a growing global problem to which New Zealand is not immune. The manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods is a crime that is depriving our manufacturers exporters and retailers of their legitimate earnings. Their productivity and financial viability are being threatened by cheap—and sometimes unsafe—fake products and that also means that jobs are at risk at a time when the economy can least afford it. 
Counterfeit goods can be shoddy products that unsuspecting consumers are deceived into buying; thereby in some instances unwittingly exposing them to significant health and safety risks. Among the people benefiting from the sale of counterfeit goods are organised crime groups—potentially terrorists—that have been implicated in their manufacture and global distribution. Compared with the distribution of drugs counterfeit goods are increasingly being seen as an easy and safe source of income by criminals. 
The bill provides the Ministry of Economic Development and the police with standard investigative powers—but also limited non-warranted powers—to search for and seize counterfeit goods being displayed for sale in public areas. This power has been developed to specifically address the sale of counterfeit goods in markets and fairs as well as their sale by street vendors where the transient and itinerant nature of traders make the obtaining of a search warrant impractical for enforcement purposes. Furthermore the bill extends the powers available to the New Zealand Customs Service to enable it to play a more active part in enforcing criminal offence provisions against the importers of counterfeit goods. This measure builds upon the Customs Service’s existing trademark and copyright enforcement role and recognizes that its officers often have specialist knowledge relating to offending importers and may be in possession of counterfeit or pirated goods those offenders have tried to import. These moves to enhance enforcement of the criminal offences for trading in counterfeit goods and pirated copyright-protected works have been welcomed by trademark and copyright owners. 
Thirdly the bill contains a number of minor amendments to the Copyright Act and Trade Marks Act. One of those amendments is intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Customs Service’s administration of the border protection measures against the importation of counterfeit goods into New Zealand. It will also assist small businesses to take advantage of those measures. The border protection measures are a notice regime administered by the Customs Service and are designed to facilitate copyright and trademark owners taking civil action against the importers of counterfeit goods. Under the regime notice the Customs Service can detain shipments of suspected infringing goods described in the notice pending civil action by rights-holders against the importers of those goods. The bill includes an amendment to provide the Customs Service with the discretion to suspend enforcement of a border protection notice when a rights-holder fails to reimburse the Customs Service’s costs related to the enforcement of a notice. This measure will help to phase out the $5000 bond that guards against the possibility of a rights-holder defaulting on a Customs Service invoice. This bond has been a significant barrier for small businesses taking advantage of the border protection measures. 
The introduction of the bill also provides an opportunity to address a number of technical issues that have arisen since the Trade Marks Act came into force in August 2003 in order to clarify the intent or improve the effectiveness of those provisions. Finally the bill will amend sections 87 and 188 of the Copyright Act to restore an exception to copyright infringement that was inadvertently removed by the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008. Without the exception an establishment like a hotel bar or restaurant showing its patrons a broadcast of for example a Sky Network Television channel for which it had paid a subscription fee to do so could be required to pay an additional licensing fee to copyright owners for any copyright material used in the broadcast. I commend this bill to the House.