Hodgson Pete: Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hodgson Pete: Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I wish to advise that in the course of this debate I have been offered some counterfeit goods. I will just find them here. It is pretty serious but it is what happens with modern technology. It is very straightforward. It says “Buy cheap pirated software here”. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: Where? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Well I will tell the member: “http://”—is the member taking this down? 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: Yep. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: —“cheapestsoftinc.com/”. Shall I do that again or did the member get it the first time? OK. The Hon Rodney Hide sharp as a knife got the website stuff down the first time. The point is that even as we have been debating the ubiquitous nature of counterfeiting and its omnipresence it came up on my phone. Unbelievable! Who would have thought? I do not know whether anyone else has checked their phone to see whether they have been tempted with counterfeit goods but I have in the course of this debate. If necessary—and the officials could indicate this to me—I would be happy to forward this email on to them for further investigation should they wish. The point is that with modern technology any form of counterfeiting is pretty straightforward and all of us know all the spam we have to clear off our little phones laptops or whatever they may be. Every morning from the night before there will be some counterfeit goods on the market. That is why legislation like this matters. 
It matters for another reason—that is that this country will not get there on cows and tourism alone. We will have to look to the innovative components of our economy and the innovative nature of our people and our ability to protect the intellectual property that New Zealanders devise if we are to have an economic future that will have a broader base than exists at the moment. That is why we need to be reasonably staunch on intellectual property matters. 
Last year I was in Geneva. I went up to the World International Property Organization—I dropped in; I rang first. I dropped into the World International Property Organization for an afternoon and I asked a few questions. The World International Property Organization is one of the bodies of the United Nations. It is headed up by an Aussie guy quite a smart guy. Pretty much my question was that now that the world economy is changing from the dominance of so-called developed nations to the greater hegemony of China and India in particular but also in due course Brazil Russia Indonesia and so on are we seeing a change in the average approach around the world to intellectual property or is the white man’s approach to intellectual property which is to defend it staunchly still in the ascendancy? Answer: we are seeing a change. It is not a big change said this guy but it is there. As there are now more and more developing countries joining the world economy and some of them with spectacular pace their attitudes to intellectual property which is not as defensive or protective as ours are starting to infuse the debate globally a little. 
He made the second point that as those countries make more money from their intellectual property so the value that they place on intellectual property will rise. Let us take India as an example. It is a massive producer of generic pharmaceuticals. It is a huge producer. Dr Reddy’s Laboratories recently sold out—one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. A massive export for India had been these generics. Well not any more. More and more India’s pharmaceutical effort is going into original molecules. More and more India is not the one waiting for the patent to drop away or for the time-limited patent to come to an end. More and more India is the one that is trying to get the product to market in a timely way because that country is moving from being if you will a copycat to an originator. 
So too to an extent is China. It may be to a lesser extent and it may also be that in China it is a lot more variable. But China now has an extraordinary effort going into its scientific endeavours that did not exist even 10 years ago. In parts of Beijing the north-east quadrant of Beijing there are more universities than Australia and New Zealand put together in that one city. The intellectual capacity of some of those centres is now bewildering at least to a New Zealander. China is famously good at counterfeiting and ripping people off.  
The 
Lord of the Rings 
 was launched in Wellington one day and could be seen in Beijing the following day. Those days are still with us but they are in retreat a little. I suppose that as things move on and as the next and last continent—which is of course Africa—goes through that process of development we will see the whole thing play out again perhaps not in my lifetime but certainly in my children’s lifetime. 
I think that our approach to intellectual property will probably remain in the ascendancy foreseeably but it is true that it does change as new big bulky countries join the international trading arena as China and India have done so spectacularly in recent times.