EC: Serbia Made Moderate Progress in IP Area in 2014

As part of its enlargement program for 2014, the European Commission has recently issued a progress report on Serbia, part of which concerns the protection of intellectual property rights. According to the report, Serbia has made moderate progress in the IP field.

The report notes that the Law on Copyrights and Related Rights amendments introduced in 2012 are not fully harmonized with the EU legislation. Furthermore, the Serbian IPO does not yet have adequate administrative capacity to meet the responsibilities of the Commission for Copyright that were transferred to it when the latter was abolished in 2013.

Some progress has been made in the field of IPR enforcement, although better coordination and cooperation among various institutions in charge of IP protection is needed. The report notes that formal coordination mechanism for effective IPR enforcement is still missing.

Specific courts were assigned to handle civil IP cases starting in January 2014 – the Higher Court in Belgrade was entrusted with cases involving natural persons and the Commercial Court in Belgrade with cases concerning legal persons.

The report notes that further alignment of Serbian legislation with the IPR Enforcement Directive needs to be achieved and that there are still delays in the implementation of the national IP strategy for the 2011-2015 period.

Prepared by: Jelena Jankovic

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

Source: Serbian IPO; Serbia 2014 Progress Report