Fifthly and finally, how much progress has been made with the earlier mentioned
attempts to harmonise the intellectual property laws of the region? At the height of the
Asian economic miracle, the ASEAN governments concluded a Framework
Agreement on Intellectual Property Cooperation in 1995. Rather ambitiously, the
establishment of a common Patent and a common Trade Mark Office like in Europe
was envisaged at the time as one of the ultimate goals. The creation of ASEAN
standards and practices was a further goal. The Agreement created the ASEAN
Working Group on Intellectual Property Cooperation and two sub-committees on
trade marks and patents respectively. The various working groups proposed in two
concept papers the adoption of regional filing systems where applicants will be able to
file their applications in any ASEAN office acting as a receiving agency and
forwarding the application to other designated offices. The working groups succeeded
in developing drafts of regional filing forms for trade marks, but progress in the
introduction of the system has been slow. Several factors seem to be coming together