EC Releases “Report on EU Customs Enforcment of Intellectual Property Rights”

Last year, EC customs border seized 79,112 shipments with a total retail value of €1.1 billion.   The number of cases was nearly double that of last year (43,572).  The shipments seized were smaller in volume, and the number of ‘articles’ seized fell from 118 million in 2009  to 103 in 2010  million.

42% of the articles detained by customs at the border were cigarettes or other tobacco products,office stationary, labels/tages/emblems, and clothing were also among the top categories of goods seized.

69% of infringing goods sent through the mail were medicines.

87.7% of the seized goods violated trademarks, 8.9% violated design and model rights, 1.5% violated copyright and related rights, and 1.5% violated geographical indications.

96% of the seizures were the result of an application by a rightholder – up from 74% two years ago.  Applications from rightholders have grown rapidly in the past decade – from less than 1,000 in 2000 to over 18,000 in 2010.

The Report also contains a brief overview of various enforcement activities undertaken by the EC, including the review of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1383/2003; the development of the COPIS database to store applications from rightholders; the EU-China Joint Customs Cooperation Comittee, the ACTA negotiations, and member-state customer awareness campaigns

EU Documents

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  • Mike Palmedo

    Mike Palmedo is the admin for infojustice.org, and he manages interdisciplinary research on copyright exceptions at American University College of Law's Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property. He has Masters degrees Economics and in International Affairs, and is an economics PhD candidate.

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