CAIRO: Egypt's Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) expects Egypt to be removed from the list of countries violating intellectual property rights by the end of this month or early May, Mohamed Hegazy, head of the protection of intellectual property rights at the Authority told local newspapers. He said that there are strong expectations that Egypt would be off of the list after the “jumps that have been achieved recently in the field of intellectual property rights.” Hegazy continued that the issuing of an intellectual property rights protection law and its implementation recently, “has helped Egypt out of the list of worst violators of intellectual property rights.” However, Egypt has remained on other international lists of countries that violate intellectual property, although there were indicators that Egypt would be “likely” removed from these lists during last year, ITIDA said in a statement. Hegazy denied any US pressure on Egypt to tighten the penalties provided under the law of intellectual property protection, complaints, “especially with American companies such as Microsoft and others, from exposure to piracy of its products.” American companies, led by Microsoft, have complained of piracy of its products in Egypt and the illegal selling of copies. The chairman added that the intellectual property law “currently in force does not need any amendments,” describing it as “balanced and achieves the necessary deterrence, but sometimes there is some overlap with other sectors, especially with the integration of telecommunications, media and overlap in the content and then there is a need for coordination with regard to liability for the content, which is being coordinated now.” He pointed out that there is an urgent need to “accelerate in this matter.” Hegazy stressed that the authority is still interested in holding training sessions for the education of judges, prosecutors and courts on the economic definition of intellectual property legislation and its various applications in order to “keep pace with changes in piracy and violations of property rights.” BM
