Hutchison Paul: Trade Marks Amendment Bill Copyright Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Hutchison Paul: Trade Marks Amendment Bill Copyright Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
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Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important legislation. There is no doubt that it is fundamental for the viability of the international trading market that intellectual property is appropriately protected and observed. In many respects that is what this legislation is all about. 
I absolutely take the point made by both Maryan Street and the previous speaker Clare Curran that the landscape around intellectual property is constantly changing. That has been the case for hundreds of years and it will continue to change as we see an increasingly rapidly evolving technology. 
As the Hon Maurice Williamson so clearly pointed out counterfeiting behaviour is becoming more and more of a problem internationally and it is now impinging on the international business markets to the order of hundreds of billions of dollars and this situation is getting worse and worse. But not only that there is also the possibility of threats to public safety. I think he brought up the example of counterfeit helicopter blades. During the submission period A J Park pointed out that that threat was one of the issues along with the increasingly rapid evolution of counterfeit medicines going right around the world. I think the Hon Maurice Williamson’s example was unusual but certainly with a lot of mainstream medicines whether heart medicine high blood pressure medicine or blood thinning medicine—a whole variety of medicines—all these things have been tried on to the detriment of individuals. 
Of course though underlying this is the protection of intellectual property and that is why it is so apt and appropriate that we have the amalgamation of those three treaties the Nice agreement the Madrid Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks and of course the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks. I was very interested to note that this aims to make national trademark registration systems more user-friendly and to reduce business compliance costs for trademark owners. I think it is very salutary that it comes in the name of Singapore. After all Singaporeans are so well-known for being efficient and effective. In fact in many respects that is one of their trademarks and is something that countries like New Zealand have a lot to learn from. 
I remember that in the Committee stage the Hon Pete Hodgson quoted Elspeth Buchanan as being someone who had some reservations. She is from P L Berry and Associates and is someone who has spent 40 years in the industry. I note that one of the areas she was concerned about was the balance of just how much enforcement we have. This legislation which has now been split into two bills requires appropriate enforcement yet excesses of enforcement may go too far. P L Berry and Elspeth Buchanan cite a recent incident with the Customs Service to show where the potential dangers to legitimate New Zealand businesses can be eroded. A shipment was stopped because of a suspicion that it breached a customs notice but the customs officer was unable to make a formal determination that the products were counterfeits. This caused a delay and consequently a whole shipment of goods for Christmas was not delivered on time much to the disappointment of the business concerned and much to the disappointment of the recipients. 
Like all of the things in this legislation intellectual property is a dynamically evolving situation and needs to be revised continually and this Government is doing exactly that. On the other hand there is a fine balance to how far one goes in terms of enforcement and I think this legislation has it about right. It is with great pleasure that I commend the legislation to the House.