According to Art. 54 of the Patents and Industrial Designs Act, where an applicant’s ordinary residence and principal place of business are outside Papua New Guinea, the applicant must be represented by a person who is ordinarily resident in Papua New Guinea.

According to Art. 32 of the Patents and Industrial Designs Act, the Minister may, upon the request of a government agency or any other person, authorise the exploitation of a patented invention without the consent of the patent owner, by notice published in the National Gazette. Such authorisation may be granted where the exploitation is required in the public interest – including for reasons of national security and predominantly to supply the Papua New Guinea market – or where the Minister has determined that the patent’s exploitation is anti-competitive and considers that the authorisation would remedy that anti-competitive practice.

Papua New Guinea is a party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Papua New Guinea’s copyright framework is established under the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act 2000. The Act does not provide for an open-ended fair use or fair dealing standard. Rather, it sets out a closed list of narrowly defined exceptions, limiting lawful uses to specific, enumerated purposes that are subject to the principle of “fair practice”. This principle requires that any permitted use be compatible with fair practice and confined to what is justified by the relevant purpose. Sections 8–16 codify these exceptions, including, inter alia, quotation of a short part of a published work where the use is compatible with fair practice and does not exceed the extent justified by the purpose, and the reproduction of a short part of a published work for teaching, by way of illustration in written, audio, or visual materials, subject to the same fair practice conditions.

Papua New Guinea has not signed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty.

Papua New Guinea has not signed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

The country lacks a comprehensive framework in place that provides effective protection of trade secrets, but it is reported that, in practice, the protection of trade secrets is largely governed by common law principles applied by the courts, with non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and contractual arrangements serving as the primary mechanisms for businesses to safeguard confidential information. Moreover, under Art. 51 of the Constitution, every citizen has a right of reasonable access to official documents, subject to limitations that are reasonably justifiable in a democratic society to protect trade secrets and privileged or confidential commercial or financial information obtained from a person or body.

There is no obligation for passive infrastructure sharing in the country to deliver telecom services to end users, nor it is practiced in the mobile sector and in the fixed sector based on commercial agreements.
However, under the Universal Access and Service (UAS) Policy of 2023, infrastructure sharing is mandatory for networks funded by the UAS Fund. This is a telecom/ICT sector fund established under the National ICT Act 2009 to finance projects that extend ICT infrastructure and services to underserved areas, particularly rural and remote communities.

Under Art. 47 of the National Procurement Act 2018, evaluators are required, for covered procurements of goods, works and services, to apply a price preference in favour of national companies and citizens. The margin of preference is set at 15% for goods and 7% for works or services. Moreover, joint ventures or associations between an eligible national company or citizen and a foreign partner are eligible for a lower, uniform preference margin of 4% for goods, works, or services. This preferential treatment is available only where the joint venture is registered in Papua New Guinea or where the national participant can demonstrate a beneficial interest of more than 50%, as evidenced by the profit-and-loss-sharing provisions in the joint venture agreement.

According to Art. 48(2) of the National Procurement Act 2018, the National Procurement Commission must ensure that, insofar as reasonably practicable, all procurements promote and maximise (a) the use of local expertise and materials, and (b) the participation of local communities or organisations.
Moreover, according to Art. 58, bidders must be registered with the National Procurement Commission as qualified bidders before they may receive bids or enter into contracts with the National Procurement Commission and other public and statutory bodies. The Commission may register applicants that meet the statutory requirements and may remove those that no longer qualify.

Papua New Guinea is not a signatory of the 1996 World Trade Organization (WTO) Information Technology Agreement (ITA) nor the 2015 expansion (ITA II).

According to Art. 48 of the National Procurement Act 2018, procurements up to PGK 10 million (approx. USD 2.4 million) are reserved for national companies and citizens with the capacity to supply the goods, works or services. For procurements above PGK 10 million and below PGK 50 million (approx. USD 12.1 million), at least 50% national participation is required, either through execution of at least half of the contract value by national firms or citizens, or through partnerships in which nationals hold at least 50% ownership. Procurements of PGK 50 million or more are open to all companies and persons.
For procurements in the first two value bands, if the lowest evaluated bid exceeds the Commission’s estimate by 10% or more, or if all bidders fail to meet the national participation requirement, the procedure must be cancelled and retendered without participation restrictions. The Board may also waive these limitations where restricting competition would not be in the State’s interest due to insufficient national capacity.

According to Art. 48 of the National Procurement Act 2018, all procurements that relate, in whole or in part, to activities reserved for citizens under the Regulations of the Investment Promotion Act 1992 must be restricted. These reserved activities are specified in the Investment Promotion Regulation 1992 and, following the amendment introduced by the Investment Promotion (Amendment) Regulation 2021, include the repair of consumer electronics goods when this activity is not carried out in conjunction with the manufacture, wholesale or retail sale of such goods.