The action plan dubbed the “Sa Kaew Model” against intellectual property violations, stemmed from a Tuesday meeting between Department of Special Investigation (DSI) Director-General Pol Col Paisit Wongmuang and Sa Kaew provincial governor Phakkarathorn Thienchai and related agencies over the matter. The meeting came after a clash at the market between DSI officials and Cambodian vendors last week. Three Cambodians were arrested so far in relation to the incident.

Phakkarathorn said the meeting set up a working group, which would be chaired by a deputy provincial police chief, to act on the matter starting from short-term solutions (March-April) and a work assessment would be conducted every three months. As for the assault of DSI officials and property damage during the clash, local police were investigating it, according to Phakkarathorn. He also said the DSI would be required to inform related agencies before launching operations in the area as to prevent such problems from re-occurring. He said the market owner and vendors would soon be invited to talks.

Citing that the issue of intellectual property violations was a national problem that needed to be solved, Paisit said the urgent matter was a formulation of violator-arresting operation plan that required related agencies’ integration so it could be effectively run and timely and they could have back-up upon request. Affirming that other measures would follow in the future, he said he had suggested the Sa Kaew governor to chair the working team and DSI chief to serve as advisor for better work integration and efficiency. Paisit said the DSI would proceed on investigating the pirated goods-selling gang and subsequent actions such as tracing money trails and anti-money laundering measures.

Mala Tangprasert, vice chairwoman of the Private Sector Committee for the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, said she was pleased with the meeting results in which Sa Kaew asked for two months to suppress pirate goods trade. She said the solution was to push out counterfeit products and to have Cambodian vendors shift to selling legal goods. She said she wanted Rong Klua Market to bring back the past glory of being a major source of second-hand goods.

“The private sector had complained all along that we couldn’t take it anymore because the logo violation was a criminal offence and that the authority could make arrests – unlike the patent violation which can be settled out of court. Although the Customs Department claimed this border checkpoint had generated almost Bt100 billion in trade volume per year, we need to be reminded that the country’s trade with the US and Europe is worth Bt1 trillion per year – hence we have to do something with this problem,” she said adding that the United States Trade Representative next month (April) would consider removing Thailand from the Priority Watch List.