Secondly, it is interesting to observe that some countries that had only a very basic
legislation in the late 1980s have made significant progress in establishing an
intellectual property system (for example Singapore and Malaysia) whereas others
that had a more complete set of intellectual property laws have slowed down
somewhat. Finally, the various intellectual property systems of ASEAN countries
looked more similar to each other in 1990 than they do now. In the late 1980s and
early 1990s, all countries that were members of ASEAN at the time had come under
simultaneous pressures of the United States and European Union to introduce modern
intellectual property systems and to reform their colonial legislation. As a result, all
countries in the early 1990s were struggling with similar problems to implement
intellectual property laws quickly. Today, ASEAN countries are at quite different
levels of intellectual property development and a country such as Singapore faces
very different issues and problems than, for example, Laos and Cambodia. Apart from
the ASEAN enlargement, the more diverse ASEAN intellectual property landscape of
recent years has of course also to do with the TRIPS Agreement and the reaction of
various countries to it and more recently with the Free Trade Agreements concluded
by the US and others with countries of the region, which have targeted those
economies that are regarded as more successful.