MANILA, THE PHILIPPINES - The Philippines must go after high-profile cases of counterfeiting and copyright piracy if it wants to better protect intellectual property rights, a US expert said here Wednesday.

Intellectual property expert and George Washington University Law School professor Ralph Oman called for the customs bureau to recruit more people and for more "effective judicial management" to better punish copyright violators.

Oman recommended that law enforcement agencies focus on the "high-profile prosecution of a big (fish)" engaged in the piracy of products such as DVDs, CDs and branded fashion products.

He told a forum at the US embassy in Manila that highly-visible raids of shopping malls to seize counterfeit products, which often grab headlines, were "not a good use of limited resources."

Counterfeit products are openly sold in the Philippines despite government efforts to crack down on such practices.

Oman also called for education campaigns to raise awareness of the need to stamp out piracy "for long-term economic reasons as well as for the protection of the intellectual property of Philippine artists, creators and innovators."

"You have to push hard to protect your intellectual property rights," he said.

He hailed recent proposed amendments to the country's intellectual property code, saying they would create "a very strong copyright law" and help speed up the Philippines' removal from a US list of nations where copyright violations are common. --AFP