EU enforcement of IPRs: the DG TAXUD and EUIPO’s joint report

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) recently released the first joint annual report on EU enforcement of intellectual property rights: results at the EU border and in the EU internal market 2020.

The report

Previously, the results of enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the EU had been published separately by the DG TAXUD and EUIPO. As such, the recently released report marks the first joint annual document concerning the detention of products infringing IPRs both at the EU border and within the EU internal market.

The document offers a high level of granularity, containing inter alia data about the detentions, information on the quantities and value of detained goods, their provenance, the means of transport used, the type of infringed IPRs, as well as data on release and destruction of goods (the latter in accordance with articles 23 [destruction of goods under the standard procedure] and 26 [destruction of goods under the procedure for small consignments] of Regulation (EU) No 608/2013).

Section 4 of the report refers to detentions at the EU border and is based on data uploaded into DG TAXUD’s COPIS (the EU-wide anti-Counterfeit and anti-Piracy information System) by the customs authorities of all the Member States. Some of the results included in this section are the following:

• The primary sources of the provenance of infringing goods arriving in the EU are China (for most categories of goods); Hong Kong (for mobile phone accessories and labels, tags, and stickers); and Turkey (for medicines, clothing, and clothing accessories).
• In terms of registered cases, the principal means of transport were postal and express courier. Maritime and road transport were the primary means for detained articles.
• Regarding detentions at the border, the most infringed right was trademarks, followed by designs, copyright and geographical indications.
• Around 83% of the detentions led to the destruction of goods under the standard or small consignments procedures. Seven percent of the detentions involved a court case for determining infringement, criminal proceedings, or a settlement out of court. The remaining 10% concerned the release of articles due to lack of response by the rights holder to the customs authorities, the articles were found to be original, or there was no infringement.

Section 5 of the report consists of data on detentions within the EU internal market as uploaded into the IPEP (IP Enforcement Portal) by the various enforcement authorities of 23 out of 27 EU Members States (records on national markets detentions from Austria, Finland, Germany, and Sweden were not available). This section provides detailed information and trends identified, including the types of most infringed IPRs. In this regard, the most infringed right was trademarks, followed by designs, copyright and patents.

Overall detentions

Section 6 of the report includes information on overall detentions, meaning only detained and not released items. As such, it is emphasized that the data in this section is not simply the sum of the relevant data contained in sections 4 and 5. This is because “fake goods detained at the EU border but later released are not recorded in the IP Enforcement Portal and, therefore, do not appear in the overall results analysed in this section”.

As such, section 6 was produced based on a subset of COPIS data uploaded into the IPEP (i.e., information on detentions at the EU border), as well as the data used in section 5 (i.e., detentions in the EU internal market reported in the IPEP).

An overview of the overall detention data for 2020, both at the EU border and within the EU internal market, is provided below:

• Approximately 66 million fake items were detained and not released in the EU, a reduction of almost 13% compared to 2019 (76 million items). [The term “fake goods/items” is used in the report to refer to “those articles clearly identified as non-original that infringe an IPR”].
• Over 69% of fake items were detained within the internal market, with the rest detained at the EU border (31%).
• The estimated value of fake items detained in the EU was approximately €2 billion, compared to approximately €2.5 billion in 2019.
• Italy ranks in the first position of reported and not released detentions, in terms of the number of items, followed by Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, and France.
• Greece tops the ranking of reported not released detentions in terms of the estimated value of the items, followed by Hungary, Germany, Italy, and France.
• The top five subcategories identified in 2020 in terms of the number of items detained and estimated value of items detained were:

• This section also provides insights into the types of most infringed IPRs. The most infringed right was trademarks, followed by designs, and copyright, both in terms of the number of items and the estimated value of items.

Final remarks

Overall, the report provides valuable insights into the enforcement of IPRs both at the EU border and in the EU internal market, which will be beneficial when developing countermeasures and implementing policies in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy.

The full report of the EU enforcement of intellectual property rights: results at the EU border and in the EU internal market 2020 (90 pages) is available here.

Credits:

The first image is by Alexander Bobrov from Pixabay.

The second image is courtesy of Riana Harvey.

The third image is Figures 6-6 and 6-7. EU enforcement of intellectual property rights: results at the EU border and in the EU internal market 2020. European Commission, European Union Intellectual Property Office (2021).