Cambodia will join an international convention on the registration of industrial designs next month, furthering the scope of the county’s intellectual property protections, a government official said yesterday.

Phe Chantravuth, deputy director of the department of intellectual property at the Ministry of Commerce, said Cambodia will officially join the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs on February 25.

In doing so, the Kingdom will join the 65 other members of the agreement, also known as the Hague System.

The mechanism, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), will allow Cambodian businesses to request intellectual property protection for their industrial designs with all other member countries through a single application.

An industrial design “constitutes the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of an article [and . . .] may consist of three dimensional features, such as the shape of an article, or two dimensional features, such as patterns, lines or colour,” according to the WIPO website.

Cambodia’s ascension to the Hague System will make it a member of all three intellectual property treaties managed by WIPO, having joined the Madrid Protocol for trademarks in 2015 and the Patent Cooperation Treaty last September.

Chantravuth said that the three agreements provide important support to Cambodian businesses and the country’s economy. They also encourage foreign investment as international firms can now more easily guarantee the protection of their designs in Cambodia.

“The benefits of the Hague System will help to grow the industrial sector in Cambodia as well as help promote and expand the work of inventors in the country,” he said.

He added that the system would also increase investor confidence, leading to more FDI.

“The system will also allow more investors to come to Cambodia as they can now be sure that designs either developed in the country or brought to Cambodia from other countries will be protected,” he said.