“EU Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: Results at the EU Border and in the EU Internal Market 2020” (“Report“) is jointly prepared by the European Commission (“EC”) and European Intellectual Property Office (“EUIPO”). The Report is composed based on the data on the detentions at the EU border and within the internal market, reported by the customs authorities and the data on detentions within the internal market reported by the enforcement authorities. Turkey is ranked as the third provenance of country following China and Hong Kong for counterfeit goods in the Report.

The Report stated that the total number of counterfeit products detained at customs and in the EU market in 2020 is approximately 66 million which is worth EUR 2 billion. There is a reduction in the number of detained counterfeit goods by %13 in 2020 compared to the 76 million detained goods in 2019. The stagnation in trade during the first months of the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties experienced by the customs authorities in carrying out controls are shown as the cause of the decrease in the numbers.

In terms of the value of counterfeit goods, China is ranked as the number one provenance for counterfeit goods entering the European Union with a rate of 50%, similar to the previous years. Hong Kong is ranked second as the main source of counterfeit mobile phones and accessories, while Turkey, which is shown as the main source for counterfeit clothing and drugs, is ranked third.

According to the statistics, Turkey is the primary source of counterfeit drugs, clothing and accessories, secondary source of counterfeit perfumes and cosmetics, sneakers, bags, jewelry, accessories and textiles, and tertiary source of counterfeit food products, shoes, watches, vehicles, vehicle accessories and spare parts and labels.

Notable points in the Report are as follows:

  • Trademark rights come first with over 70%, followed by design rights over 20% with regards to infringed intellectual property rights in terms of detained goods.
  • The most frequently detained counterfeit goods by customs authorities and enforcement authorities were clothing accessories, packaging materials, recorded CDs/DVDs and labels, tags, stickers. These four subcategories comprise 49 % of the total number of detained goods.
  • 87% of goods found to infringe intellectual property rights were delivered to customs via sea and land transportation. However, the detentions of goods arriving by sea and land transport account for only 2.8% of all cases. By comparison, products sent by post and express courier correspond to 5% of all products infringing intellectual property rights but correspond to 85% of detentions.
  • Goods exported from Turkey constitute 10.22% of the counterfeit products detained by the European Union, and the total value of these products corresponds to 19.22% of the total value of the detained counterfeit goods.
  • While Italy was the country that detained the highest number of counterfeit products in terms of both customs and internal market figures, Greece ranked first in terms of value.

The Report indicated that the arising need for certain types of products as a result of the current pandemic, disasters and emergencies due to global warming are seen as an opportunity by criminal organizations to advance their harmful illegal activities. The Report also underlined the importance of coordinated actions against crimes against intellectual property rights.

Please see this link for the full text of Report.