The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has welcomed the final report of the Ergas Committee on Intellectual Property and Competition Policy, ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said today.
"The Report highlights the growing importance of the application of competition principles to intellectual property.
"For too long the major area of intellectual property laws has been captured by producer interests at the expense of competition, users and consumers, especially Australian ones.
"In particular, the ACCC has welcomed the recommendations to lift parallel import restrictions on copyrighted products across the board.
"In general, the ACCC believes that intellectual property laws that protect invention, discovery and originality are justified and not harmful but helpful to competition.
"The ACCC also welcomes the proposal to largely remove the exemptions from sections of the Trade Practices Act 1974 in respect of intellectual property. Intellectual property should be put on the same footing as other forms of property. Those exemptions enable owners of intellectual property rights to engage in anticompetitive behaviour that would not be allowed for other owners of property.
"However, it does believe that special exemptions from the Act regarding the exercise of those rights are hard to justify particularly when the possibility of authorisation exists under the Act".