p2pnet.net News:- The European Commission plans to sharply increase the enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries, “to halt the increase in piracy and counterfeiting”.

New measures will include supporting public-private partnerships for enforcement, it says.

“Some of these fakes, like pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs constitute an outright danger to the public, while others undermine the survival of EU’s most innovative sectors, confronted with the misappropriation of their creations,” says EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy.

Adopting new legislation on intellectual property is one thing, “But devising the right tools to enforce it is another,” he states. “This is now our priority”

Stress will be put on technical cooperation and assistance to help third countries fight counterfeiting but the Commission says it won’t hesitate to trigger all bilateral and multilateral sanction mechanisms against any country involved in systematic violations.

“The Commission will foster awareness raising of users and consumers in third countries and support the creation of public-private partnerships for enforcement,” it says in a statement.

“Piracy and counterfeiting continue to grow every year and have become industries, increasingly run by criminal organisations,” says Lamy. “This is a serious problem for us but also for third countries whose companies are also suffering the consequences of violation of their own intellectual property rights.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 10th, 2004 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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