Enforcement of industrial property rights in the European Union (EU): results at the EU border and in the EU internal market, 2021

Since their agreement in 2020, the General Directorate of Taxation and Customs Union of the European Commission (DG TAXUD) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), jointly publish an annual document that presents the efforts and work carried out by all authorities in the field of enforcement of industrial property rights (IPR). This second edition, published in December 2022, offers an analysis of the figures for arrests of goods that infringe IPR and other related information corresponding to 2021 and its comparison with the previous ones.

This document is produced from data on EU border apprehensions reported by customs authorities in all Member States, through the EU-wide anti-counterfeiting and piracy information system (COPIS), as well as such as the data on arrests in the internal market notified by the authorities of the EU Member States, through the IP Enforcement Portal (IPEP).

Its aim is to provide useful information to support the analysis of IPR infringements in the EU and the development of appropriate countermeasures. It also provides EU policy makers with data to develop an evidence base for priorities and policies.

Arrests at the EU border in 2021

The annual number of arrests (1) of goods suspected of infringing IPR by customs authorities at the EU border increased slightly in 2021 compared to the previous year (from around 70,000 in 2020 to around 75,000 in 2021). A more pronounced trend can be seen in terms of the number of detained items (from approximately 27 million in 2020 to approximately 42 million in 2021), exceeding even the pre-COVID-19 figure in 2019. However, the estimated value of detained items has only increased modestly (from approximately EUR 778 million to approximately EUR 806 million). This is explained by the change in the basket of detained products from expensive products towards cheaper product categories, as well as the reduction of the estimated value per unit in some of the categories of detained items.

(1) Each arrest is called a case, which includes a number of individual items, ranging from one to several million, and can cover different categories of assets and different rights holders. For each rights holder in a case, a procedure initiated by customs will be established.

Regarding the subcategories of products that appeared the most, they were common consumer products (clothing and footwear, both sports and non-sports) and luxury products (bags, wallets and purses, perfumes and cosmetics and watches).

In terms of the origin of IPR infringing items arriving in the EU, China remains the predominant country of origin for most product categories, followed by Turkey and Hong Kong.

Regarding the means of transport, the largest number of arrest cases in 2021 continued to be goods transported by post and express courier. In terms of the number of counterfeit items, stops in maritime and road traffic still account for the majority of all stopped items.

Finally, in terms of IPR types infringed by seized goods, trademarks (whether EU, national and/or international) remain by far the most infringed type.

Regarding the destination of the seized counterfeit merchandise, in more than 90% of the procedures it was destroyed:

Arrests within the EU internal market in 2021

The trend of IPR infringing goods detained in the EU internal market increased by 16% in 2021 compared to the previous year. Despite this increase in the number of detained items, the estimated value of these items decreased by 3.5% due to the shift in the basket from detained subcategories towards cheaper products.

Trademarks represent the most counterfeited type of IPR in arrests in the EU internal market (more than 93% of arrested items). In the domestic market, other types of rights were violated, such as copyright (in around 6% of the detained items) and designs (around 0.7%).

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