Over EUR760 million worth of product seized by EU customs authorities in 2013

According to the "Report on EU customs enforcement of intellectual property rights – Results at the EU border 2013", customs authorities in 2013 opened approximately 87,000 detention cases in respect of 36 million articles, accounting for a domestic retail value of more than €760 million.

This represents a slight decline from the previous year, during which there were approximately 90,000 detention cases.

It is interesting to note that: 

• 66% of the products originated from China, comprising mobile phones, memory cards, ink cartridges and electrical household appliances.
• The most prevalent product category remains clothing (accounting for 12% of all detained articles) with medicines (10%), cigarettes (9%), and toys (8%) all high on the list.
• Only 2.9% of the products were released because they were in fact original goods.

The report also says that an increase in e-commerce has resulted in a greater number of small consignments entering the market through postal and courier traffic (concerning sport shoes, personal accessories like bags and wallets, clothing, sunglasses and watches); such cases now account for 72% of all detentions, up from 40% in 2009.

Please click here to access the full report.

For more information about the report or any other anti-counterfeiting or anti-piracy related issue, please contact David Cran (david.cran@rpclegal.com)or Ben Mark (ben.mark@rpclegal.com)