The European Commission (Taxation and Customs Union) recently released statistics on the activities carried out within the fights against counterfeiting in 2010. The data published by the Commission show on one hand the effectiveness and efficiency of the control system and on the other hand an increasing number of seizures, evidence of a market that appears crisis-proof.
It is very important to analyse the main figures contained in the European Commission report, in order to have a proper idea of this phenomenon, which is in continual expansion despite the untiring efforts of legislators, local authorities and IP right holders.
During 2010 alone, 103 million of presumably counterfeit articles were seized by EU Customs. Comparison with 2009 figures provide an important indicator. If the number of items seized by Customs declined from 117 million in 2009 to 103 million in 2010, the number of shipments stopped by EU customs almost doubled, from 43,000 in 2009 to about 73,000 in 2010. This sharp rise certainly has strategic significance in that it indicates an increase in the number of suspect shipments.
The top category of articles detained by Customs were cigarettes (34%), with clothing and toys accounting for 7% each, and medicines, body care articles and small household appliances totalling 14.5% between them.
The Commission also underlined the increase in detentions of postal traffic, which grew from 15,000 in 2009 to about 45,000 in 2010. This trend reflects the rise in online orders of medicines, something which calls for immediate attention from those working in the sector, especially given the risk to consumer health posed by this counterfeit medicines market.
Countries of provenance provided no surprises however. 85% of the goods seized were from China, while other main sources of counterfeit goods were Turkey, India and Thailand.
A particularly significant statistic was the number of cases in which some form of action followed a Customs notifications, evidence of the great efforts being made by IP right holders to combat counterfeiting. In 90% of cases either the goods were destroyed following an agreement between the importer and the IP right holder or court action was initiated before the competent national authorities. Only in 4.5% of cases did the right holders not react to notification. The fact that some form of action was taken in 90% of cases is worthy of attention and indicative of the interest of the right holders in combating counterfeiting. IP right holder-Customs cooperation seems to be yielding excellent results, which will certainly act as a deterrent to counterfeiters.
Another very interesting figure came directly from the European Commission and had to do with the increase in applications for Customs protection coming from IP right holders, up from about 1000 in 2000 to about 18,000 in 2010. This steady increase, together with the various measures taken by the Member States, is another good indicator of cooperation between the authorities and right holders.
Lastly in regard to this summary of results released by the European Commission it should be pointed out that the Commission recently presented to stakeholders its proposal to modify the current Council Regulation (EC) No 1383/2003. This includes a number of significant improvements, thanks in part to lobbying by operators in the sector. The final text should be ready by the end of 2011. The main novelties of the review are the compulsory adoption by all Member States of the simplified procedure provided under Article 11 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1383/2003 and the streamlining of procedures for the filing and renewal of applications for Customs protection.
Source: Rapisardi Intellectual Property
