On Wednesday, 29 October, a seminar on Effective Methods of Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights, co-organised by the Latvian Patent Office (LPO) and the National Customs Board of the State Revenue Service (SRS Customs Board), was held for the tenth time. This year, much attention was paid to the impact of e-commerce on the circulation of counterfeit goods, which makes their detection more difficult, as well as to the spread of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, taking into account societal trends.
The seminar is organised to increase knowledge and strengthen cooperation in the field of intellectual property (IP) protection and anti-counterfeiting, and it brings together dozens of representatives from the SRS Customs Board, State Police, Prosecution Office and other public authorities.
The event serves as an important platform for the exchange of experiences and information between Latvian and European experts.
Opening the seminar, LPO Director Agris Batalauskis emphasised that the field of IP enforcement is changing along with the technological and commercial environment: “The world is changing, and there are new challenges in the field of IP as well. There is artificial intelligence, there are new e-commerce platforms, and infringements are becoming increasingly “interesting” and innovative, so we must fight them together. Our main goal, which is to ensure fair competition, protect consumers, and develop our internal market, has not changed.”
The aim of the seminar is to promote close cooperation between institutions involved in the fight against the spread of counterfeiting. Over the years, dozens of international experts and almost a thousand participants - specialists from customs, police and surveillance authorities - took part in these seminars.
Raimonds Zukuls, Deputy Director General in the Field of Customs, Director of the SRS Customs Board, noted that collaboration is the main prerequisite for a successful fight against counterfeiting. “Customs plays a major role in the fight against the spread of counterfeit goods, but we cannot win it alone – our strength lies in collaboration. We live in a time of rapid changes, and we cannot afford a weak border. We work on the external border of the EU and are facing new challenges, but such things as smuggling and threats posed by the spread of counterfeit goods have also not disappeared,” stated R. Zukuls.
Patricia García-Escudero Márquez, Director of the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights of the European Union Intellectual Property Office, stressed that the fight against counterfeiting is closely linked to public security and economic stability, noting that the link between IP rights infringing crimes and organised crime is clearly visible. She expressed the hope that Member States would actively cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect our security, adding that better results can be achieved only by working together.
Rihards Burmistris, a representative from the Health Inspectorate, introduced seminar participants to the risks of the spread of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, especially in relation to weight loss medications that enter the market illegally via online platforms. He emphasised that administrative penalties are not always sufficient to prevent repeated violations.
Dzintars Vikšers, a representative of the Economic Crimes Combatting Department of the State Police, informed about the current trends in the field of counterfeiting. For example, manufacturers of counterfeit goods are increasingly building their production sites closer to their customers and actively using social networks to trade their products. He invited all relevant institutions to actively and regularly exchange the latest information, because a fact that is completely insignificant in the opinion of one institution can be the missing link in a large-scale criminal investigation case.
Dainis Platacs, a representative of the Consumer Rights Protection Centre, stressed that there must be respective response to violations in the digital environment, meaning that social media or e-commerce platforms have an obligation to ensure that counterfeit goods are not sold there, and pointed out practical measures that can be taken by law enforcement authorities and representatives of IP rights owners.
Egīls Misītis, a representative of the SRS Customs Board, reminded of the involvement of customs in IP enforcement and of the actions taken to detain and destroy counterfeit goods detected as a result of customs control, highlighted most significant challenges and gave an overview of the largest violations prevented since 2016.
Representatives of the Italian Guardia Di Finanza, the Irish and Portuguese Tax and Customs authorities also shared their experiences, agreeing that counterfeit goods are becoming more qualitative and more difficult to detect, while the policy of penalties is still too lenient in many parts of Europe to deter criminals from their unlawful activities.
Discussing the challenges in the work of customs authorities related to the spread of counterfeit goods, internationally recognised experts acknowledged that one of the most pressing issues is the destruction of counterfeit goods. It causes environmental damage and raises the problem of reducing pollution. IP rights holders consider it a burden and are unwilling to take on this responsibility.
At the end of the seminar, representatives of IP rights holders presented signs that help identify counterfeit and pirated good. Seminar participants learned about the signs in relation to such products as car parts, construction equipment, and some most commonly counterfeited pharmaceuticals.
A discussion by representatives of law enforcement authorities, which took place on Thursday, 30 October, was organised for the third year and has already become a tradition. The main topics of the discussion were obstacles and challenges related to the enforcement of IP rights in Latvia, the storage and destruction of confiscated counterfeit goods, as well as the possibilities of their reuse. Representatives of the Italian Guardia Di Finanza, the Irish and Portuguese customs authorities also shared their experiences and practices.
