European Commission calls for evidence on anti-counterfeit toolbox initiative

In the 2020 Commission IP Action Plan, the European Commission ('EC') announced that it would establish an EU Toolbox against counterfeiting. The EU Toolbox is part of the EU Strategy to tackle Organised Crime 2021-2025. The EC reports that despite efforts to battle counterfeit goods, the market is still thriving, with an increase of detained articles at EU borders. In 2019, the imports of counterfeit goods equaled 5.8 % of total EU imports, with a value of EUR 119 billion. The EC furthermore notes a surge in counterfeit COVID-19 related goods such as face masks, protective equipment and even vaccines. 

Almost 41 million goods were detained in 2019

With the toolbox, the EC aims to achieve several goals:

• To clarify the roles and responsibilities of right holders, intermediaries (such as online platforms, payment and transport services and domain name registries) and public authorities;
• To enhance cooperation between these key actors and facilitate effective and efficient information sharing between them;
• To promote innovation, development and use of adequate tools and new technologies to prevent and detect counterfeiting activities.

The toolbox will consist of guiding principles, good practices and a wider range of tools (such as databases, checklists and e-learning modules). 

The EC provides some examples how the guiding principles and good practices could be put to use:

• As a guiding principle, online and offline intermediaries could appoint a single contact for IP enforcement and coordinate further action with right holders against the most harmful infringers; 
• As good practices, rightholders should conduct due diligence checks on their business partners in order to increase supply chain transparency; 

Furthermore, the EC hopes that the toolbox will stimulate the use of new technologies to battle counterfeiting, such as data mining, AI powered image recognition and blockchain based solutions.

Although there will not be a public consultation on the EU Toolbox, the EC has opened a ‘call for evidence’ where all relevant stakeholders can present their views, opinions and submit evidence as feedback. The call for evidence is open until 3 March 2022 and those interested can leave their feedback here.

Top picture by Lucarelli, made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License