China continues to be the country of most concern to the EU as regards piracy and counterfeiting, while India is also of concern, particularly as regards medicines, the European Commission states in its latest report on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) in third countries, which was published on Monday 12 March.
As the main source of counterfeit and pirated goods arriving in the European Union (more than 80% of the seizures of counterfeit and pirated goods come from China or Hong Kong), China continues at the top of the list of "priority countries" where the EU needs to focus its efforts and resources to protect its businesses and consumers against counterfeiting and piracy "because of persistent and longstanding problems", the Commission states.
As one of the biggest producers of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, India remains a great source of concern, especially due to the lack of adequate protection for these products.
The Commission also highlights that Indonesia, India, Russia and Argentina apply unduly restrictive criteria for granting patents, undermining innovation and research and preventing investment in these economies. The institution furthermore criticises Brazil and the fact that its procedures for the granting of patents in the pharmaceutical sector are not in compliance with international standards.
The report also highlights a particular problem concerning the counterfeiting and piracy of pharmaceutical products and the piracy of copyright, online and offline.
It furthermore emphasises the role of free trade zones in illegal trade. New empirical data show that the share of small shipments, mostly by postal or by express services, containing counterfeits or pirated goods, keeps growing.
The trade routes of counterfeit and pirated goods are becoming increasingly complex and the information collected shows that counterfeiters and pirates have the ability to misuse high-risk free trade zones for intellectual property infringements before entering the EU.
In addition, the report shows that the EU's protection system for geographical indications is also subject to abuse in third countries, leading to significant economic losses for EU producers of distinguished agri-food products.
The report can be consulted at: http://bit.ly/2FyNHby . (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)