European Commission Taxation and Customs Union

REPORT ON EU CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

RESULTS AT THE EU BORDER - 2009

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European Commission — Taxation and Customs Union

Executive summary The number of goods, suspected of infringing intellectual property rights, detained in 2009 decreased to 118 million articles, compared to the 178 million articles recorded in 2008. The number of cases in which customs administrations intervened in 2009, decreased for the first time to 43.572 from 49.381 cases recorded in 2008. Despite the global economic downturn in 2009, which affected international trade1 significantly, the number of custom's interventions remained at a relatively high level compared to former years. In almost 82% of the cases of detentions by customs, either the goods were destroyed after the holder of the goods and the right holder agreed on destruction, or the right holder initiated a court case to establish the IPR infringement. In 12% of the cases goods were released because they were either non-infringing original goods or the right holder did not react to the notification by customs. Overall, China continued to be the main source country from where goods suspected of infringing an IPR were sent to the EU (64% of the total amount of articles). However, in certain product categories, other countries were the main source, notably Egypt for toys and the United Arab Emirates for medicines and lighters. The decrease in number of articles detained concerns mainly the category DVD/CD and to a lesser extent, the categories for electrical/computer equipment and shoes. All other sectors stayed stable or showed an increase. The decrease in number of cases concerns almost all categories, except electrical/computer equipment and shoes. Due to a more specific registration of product categories, it is difficult to make an exact comparison between 2009 and the years before. The top categories of articles detained were cigarettes