Brussels, 24/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - In 2011, EU customs detained almost 115 million products suspected of violating intellectual property rights (IPR), compared to 103 million in 2010, for a value close to €1.3 billion (€1.1 billion in 2010), with 91,000 incidents of intercepted goods (up 15% compared to 2010). These are the main results of the 2011 Annual Report on implementation of intellectual property rights by EU customs services, presented by the European Commission on Tuesday 24 July.
The report also provides statistics on the kind, origin and method of transport used for products in breach of IPR, stopped at EU external borders. Thus, the noticeable rise in customs confiscation must be essentially attributed to air traffic, express delivery and postal despatch of goods, further to the growth in the online purchasing market, while there is a fall in the number of products seized in road and maritime transport. The main categories of articles intercepted are medicines (24%), packaging material (21%) and cigarettes (18%). Products for daily use and products that could be potentially dangerous to the health and safety of consumers - such as body care, medicines, toys, household appliances -accounted for a total of 28.6% of the total amount of detained articles, compared to 14.5% in 2010. The rise in the number of cases mainly concerns shoes other than for sport, household appliances and clothing. Nonetheless, among the growing number of postal packages detained in 2011, 36% contained medicines, which is proof that this kind of trade by correspondence or online is on the rise.
China is the main place of origin for counterfeit goods, with 73% of all articles detained, representing 71% of the value of all articles seized by customs. Hong Kong ranks second, with 12.65% of the total value. Other countries also are cited as leading sources for certain specific products. Turkey is named for foodstuffs, Panama for alcoholic drinks, Thailand for non-alcoholic drinks and Hong Kong for mobile phones. In around 90% of cases, the products intercepted have been destroyed or legal proceedings have been opened to determine the infringement. IPR protection is one of the priorities that Commissioner Semeta has set himself in coming months. (FG/transl.jl)