The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government wants the intellectual property registry at the Registrar General’s Department to become recognised by the area’s leading global authority, the Attorney General said this weekend.

Addressing the International Business and Finance Summit (IBFS), Allyson Maynard-Gibson said the goal was for the registry to become recognised by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

A WIPO-recommended consultant, she added, was working to help that recognition occur on trademarks and, once that was accomplished, the focus will move to copyrights.

“These are five significant projects. I am optimistic that by this time next year we will talk about them and how they are working, as well as announce new projects that will help us to achieve the goal of having the most efficient registry in the region,” Mrs Maynard-Gibson said.

As for other reforms to the Registrar General’s Department, Mrs Maynard-Gibson said it was working to achieve a goal where deeds and documents were received, scanned, indexed and returned within 30 days. Reliable online database searches were also a focus.

As for the Companies Registry, the Government was moving to ensure that incorporations - whether under the International Business Companies (IBCs) Act or Companies Act - could be done online.

Other services targeted for the electronic world were “filing annual returns, obtaining certificates of good standing, certificates of dissolution and incorporation in languages other than English”.

Mrs Maynard-Gibson said: “The immediate result of this system will be that from launch on a go forward basis, it will be possible for reliable searches to be conducted of the database. The objective is to systematically upgrade all company services so that they can be provided online. I am told that we are well on the way to launching this year.”

Elsewhere, Ryan Pinder, minister of financial services, said the way forward for the Bahamas in dealing with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) will be announced during the 2013 first quarter.