Serbian PTO Hosts IP Crime Conference

On June 12, a conference on transnational crime in the area of intellectual property took place at the Serbian IPO, supported by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and the European Patent Office (EPO).

Experts from INTERPOL, European Police Office (Europol) and other police organizations from various European countries provided guidance to the local police, market inspectors, judiciary and customs officials in setting up a successful strategy to fight organized crime in the IP area. The experts presented special methods of investigation in connection with counterfeiting and piracy on the Internet. It was also stressed that better cooperation between all stakeholders is needed both on the national and international level in order to effectively fight counterfeiting and piracy.

In the period January — May 2012, the local market inspectorate received 23 requests from the rights holders, performed 813 market controls, and seized 43,285 products suspected of violating IP rights, mainly optical discs with recorded content without the manufacturing code, textile products, sports equipment, food, cosmetics and other consumer products, books, toys and spare car parts.

In the period 2009-2011, the market inspectorate handled 137 requests coming from IP rights holders and seized 186,433 counterfeit and pirated items. Annually, the market inspectorate discovers and seizes 50,000-100,000 counterfeit items. In the 2006-2008 period, 1,027,095 counterfeit items were removed from the market.

During the first five months of 2012, the Serbian police authorities registered 55 criminal offenses in the IP area.

Prepared by: Jelena Jankovic

For more information, please contact serbia@petosevic.com.

Source: Serbian IPO