BizCLIR

In a flurry of pre-WTO accession activity, Cambodia enacted three major laws pertaining to intellectual property rights (IPR) that address trademarks, copyright, and patents/industrial design. Although the creation of this legal framework is important, greater public education and enforcement of IPR is warranted in the future. Counterfeit goods remain widely available in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and IPR are seldom enforced at the border.

For the purposes of this report, IPR refers generally to the legal protection afforded to industrial property and copyrights and related rights. Industrial property includes patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications. Copyright includes literary works such as novels, poems, plays, reference works, newspapers, and computer programs; databases; films, musical compositions, and choreography; artistic works such as paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculpture; architecture; and advertisements, maps, and technical drawings. Rights related to copyright further include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and those of broadcasters in their radio and television programs.