The European Commission (Commission) has published its Report on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights in countries outside of the European Union in which the state of IP protection and enforcement gives rise to the greatest concern and provides an update of the existing Commission's list of priority countries.
A copy of the Report can be accessed via the following webpage: https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2021/april/tradoc_159553.pdf
According to this report, China remains the top priority country while India, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine are listed on second position, followed by Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.
The level of counterfeiting remains high, causing serious revenue losses for both the EU and local industry, considering that the listed countries are EU's trading partners.
Even though the registration process for IP rights (trademarks, patents and designs) is particularly long in some of the referred countries, it is important to obtain the protection of its IP rights in order to be in a position to enforce the same in cases of counterfeiting.
According to our experience, setting up a customs watch for your trademark and design rights is a powerful tool to detect and stop counterfeiting.
Originally published 29 April, 2021
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
We operate a free-to-view policy, asking only that you register in order to read all of our content. Please login or register to view the rest of this article.