Leading up to its celebration of World Intellectual Property Day, the Intellectual Property of Pakistan’s chair Farukh Amil called for the country to embrace innovation and creativity and touted the IPO’s efforts to promote IP in alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Innovation and creativity, supported by a robust intellectual property framework, are essential for addressing global issues like climate change, poverty, and inequality,” he said, speaking to reporters at a press conference in Islamabad.

The IPO’s director general Shazia Adnan expanded on the theme, explaining that the SDGs provide a universal framework for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all. She highlighted that intellectual property can be a key driver for reaching these goals by encouraging innovators to create solutions that contribute to sustainable practices.

“By protecting the rights of creators and innovators, we foster an environment where ideas can flourish, leading to advancements in areas like renewable energy, healthcare, education, and technology,” she stated.

In December 2023, speaking in Peshawar at an awareness session on IP protection jointly organized between the IPO and the Industrialists Association Peshawar, Amil had stressed the importance of IP for the promotion of genuine trade and underscored the need for the creation of awareness among manufacturers, people and industrialists on its registration, protection and enforcement for genuine business development.

The Associated Press of Pakistan reported that, speaking as chief guest, Amil said that the workshop aimed to raise awareness among people, manufacturers and industrialists in Peshawar about IPR-related services including trademarks, copyrights and patent designs that were protected by his organization and ensure their effective enforcement by law enforcement agencies to avoid counterfeiting and piracy of their products.

For this purpose, the news service said, Amil said the process of digitalization has been started by IPO Pakistan with the assistance of the Punjab IT Board. Besides English and Urdu, he said people need to be educated about IPR in regional and mother languages including Pashto, Hindko, Punjabi, Sindhi and Balochi, for which the role of academia and media was equally important.

Earlier, in June 2023, the country introduced its first-ever music-related policy to address piracy, copyrights and other issues, according to Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb. Announcing the policy, she called it “big news for the industry.”

Dawn reported that Aurangzeb said that since the 1970s, no policy parameters for the music industry have been introduced, while acknowledging that Pakistan and its music industry have suffered due to intellectual property theft, but said the new policy will fully protect the rights of composers and musicians.

The policy draft has been prepared in accordance with international standards, Dawn reported, allowing for protection of the rights of artists’ public performance, production, distribution, adaptation, duration, and mechanical and communication rights.

“Music could be termed the soul and spirit of the Pakistani society, rather it was a national and cultural identity, being brought forward from generation to generation,” she said. “All issues and demands of the music stakeholders, including copyrights, would be resolved.”

The policy would provide legal cover to the rights of music producers, singers, writers and lyricists, besides resolving the long-standing issues of the industry related to sales and piracy.

It is against this backdrop, and our optimism that intellectual property protection may soon become a priority in Pakistan, that we are announcing this, our list of Pakistan’s Top 30 IP Experts.

First, we turned to IP professionals in the region in order to understand better what clients need today. Asia IP asked a large number of professionals – mostly in-house counsel and corporate legal managers – what they were looking for from their legal service providers. From their answers, we have compiled our list of Pakistan’s IP Experts, those lawyers who understand just what their clients need and are able to provide them with the best practical advice.

Pakistan’s top law firms each placed a number of lawyers on our list. Heavy hitters like Ali & Associates placed four lawyers (Karimullah Adeni, Hanya Haroon, Syed Auqil Ali Shah and Ali Kabir Shah) on our list, while Bharucha & Co. (Abdul Aziz, Mohammed Fazil Bharucha and Farzana Rustom), Meer & Hasan (Salim Hasan, Farooq Amjad Meer and Zeeshan Ashraf Meer) and Vellani & Vellani (Khawja Shoaib Mansoor, Ameen Vellani and Badaruddin Vellani) each placed three lawyers on our list of experts. ALIPA (Muhammad Abeed Atif and Khadija Ijaz), Hamayuns (Mohsin Nusrullah and Saad Nusrullah), Sheikh Brothers (Salman Ahmed Sheikh and Sultan Sheik) and United Trademark & Patent Services (Hasan Irfan Khan and Yawar Irfan Khan) each landed two. Eight other firms each placed a single lawyer on our list. Only lawyers active in practice in offices in Pakistan were elible for inclusion.

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.

All of them have something in common: they are experts in their fields and, in one way or another, they provide extra value for their clients. They are Asia IP’s Pakistan IP Experts. – GREGORY GLASS

Pakistan’s IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to thousands of in-house counsel in Pakistan, Asia and around the world, as well as South Asia-focused partners at international law firms, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel.

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of the editorial team at Asia IP, which has more than 50 years of collective experience in researching and understanding the legal market in Pakistan.

All private practice intellectual property lawyers working at law firms in Pakistan were eligible for inclusion in the nominations process; there were no fees or any other requirements for inclusion.

The names of our 30 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.