‘’Aside from this, the first quarter of the year usually is a lean season for pirated products as people just shelled out their money for the Christmas season,’’ Intellectual Property Rights Division (IPRD) chief lawyer Jose Justo Yap said.

He said compared to last year when they received almost 1,000 complaints for IPR violation, for the first quarter of this year they only served 93 search warrants from only 32 complaints.

‘’This can be considered a significant drop since last year because we are already in the month of April but we haven’t even received a third of the complaints in 2005,’’ Yap said.

However, he noted that since the closure of the 168 Mall following a raid conducted by the Bureau of Customs (BoC), they received less complaints from private companies.

‘’Most of the private companies usually target stalls or establishments from the said mall,’’ Yap said. He explained that the 168 Mall has gained a ‘’reputation’’ for selling products which have been the subjects of previous raids.

In fact, Yap said the Divisoria and Binondo area, where many malls are located, accounts for around 60 percent of their IPR cases, while the remaining 40 percent are for other places around the country.

Yap said the first quarter of the year (January to March) is usually a lean season since most shopowners tend to refrain from filling up their stockrooms with products since the demand during these months is quite low.

He said shopowners from these malls usually load up on products during the second to third quarter of the year as they know that people will be spending more at this time of the year because of the approaching Christmas season.

He said June is a peak month for school supplies as students and parents prepare for the school year.