EU Customs Report 2008 About IPR Enforcement Activities not IPR Infringements from China

Yesterday the European Commission Directorate-General Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) published the 'Report on EU Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights. Results at the European Border 2008'.

On page 9 we find a crucial alinea, which disclaims the scope the report:

"Although the overall amount of IPR infringing goods entering or leaving the EU cannot be

ascertained from these figures, or whether the problem is growing, the figures do show that IPR

enforcement continues to be a priority for customs authorities in the EU."

Of course it would be interesting to know whether the IPR infringements that originate from China were growing or decreasing. That was the very reason why I devised theEnforcement/Infringement Ratio, see here.

The report states that 80 percent of the cases concerned seizures that were requested by the right holder and that 20 percent of the cases were done on the initiative of customs (ex-officio). So the number of cases and articles detained and the percentages of the countries of origin and provenance were all these products come from are interesting, but only show the perception of the right holders and customs of the goods that are suspected of infringing IPRs. A few times in the report the distinction is not made between seized goods that may or may not infringe IPRs and goods that actually do infringe IPRs.

Read the report here.

Thank you Rogier Creemers for pointing out to me the report.