China source of most counterfeit in EU

Every year, the European Commission publishes a report describing the customs detentions of articles suspected of infringing intellectual property rights (IPR), such as trademarks, copyrights and patents. These statistics provide useful information to support the analysis of IPR infringements affecting the EU market and the development of appropriate counter-measures.

Statistics published on 24 July 2012 by the European Commission show a continuous upward trend in the number of shipments suspected of violating intellectual property rights. In 2011, more than 91,000 detention cases were registered by Customs: an increase of 15% compared to 2010. This increase totally depends on air, express and postal traffic, as a result of the growth of the e-commerce market. As far as the 114 million detained articles are concerned, the value of the equivalent genuine products is estimated to be over €1.2bn.

Medicines are at the top of the list of detained articles (24%), followed by packaging materials and cigarettes.
China continued to be the main source country from where IPR infringing goods were shipped to the EU, accounting for 73% of the total amount of detained articles.

European Commission; RAPID: Press Release, IP/12/823: Protecting Intellectual Property Rights: EU customs detain over 100 million fake goods at EU borders http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/823&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

European Commission: DG Taxation and Customs Union: Customs: Customs controls: Counterfeit piracy: Statistics http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/customs/customs_controls/counterfeit_piracy/statistics/index_en.htm

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