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Vandoren, Paul; Martins, Pedro Velasco --- "The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: An EU Perspective of a Global Question" [2006] ELECD 324; in Pugatch, Perez Meir (ed), "The Intellectual Property Debate" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: The Intellectual Property Debate

Editor(s): Pugatch, Perez Meir

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420383

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: An EU Perspective of a Global Question

Author(s): Vandoren, Paul; Martins, Pedro Velasco

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

4. The enforcement of intellectual
property rights: an EU perspective
of a global question
Paul Vandoren and Pedro Velasco Martins*

One of the main problems with adopted rules is that they must be imple-
mented and enforced, in order to remain credible and effective. In many
instances, and in particular when such implementation is complex, costly
and resource-intensive, it would certainly help if the institutions called
upon to carry out such tasks were convinced of the overall beneficial effect
of their efforts for the community in general. In this chapter, we will
describe why the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR), and in
particular the fight against violations of such rights, is important for the
European Union. But, perhaps most importantly (and in a way more
difficult) we will endeavour to explain why it should be equally important
for others, including many developing countries where piracy, counterfeit-
ing and other IPR infringements are currently widespread and systemic, to
contribute to such efforts. Furthermore, we will present the `Strategy for the
enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries',1 a paper
setting the guidelines for the action of the European Union in the coming
years to address the problem outside its borders.
At a time when we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the TRIPs
agreement,2 we must face the fact that levels of piracy and counterfeiting
continue to increase every year and have grown to industrial proportions,
becoming a serious threat to national economies and governments. This ...