Czech Business Today

The EU action plan “Towards a renewed consensus on the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights” sets out ten specific actions that outline new policy for creating and using tools to address IP-infringing activity, particularly on a commercial scale.

These activities are the most harmful and represent a key challenge for the EU as they undermine investment in innovation and sustainable job creation and lead to lost tax revenue. These new tools which include a series of measures based on the “follow the money” approach which seeks to prevent commercial scale infringers from accessing means for promoting and distributing counterfeit goods, and to deprive them of their revenue. 

The objectives of the plan form a joint set of objectives – to use all means to effectively dissuade and impede the entry and diffusion on the EU’s internal market of IP-infringing products from third countries, and to stimulate investment, growth and employment in IP reliant sectors that are so key to our respective economies. The EESC endorses the Commission’s general approach, which involves adopting an action plan to address infringements of intellectual property rights in the European Union and a strategy for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries. The EESC could support the Commission’s “multi-targeted” approach if the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the targets were better defined and specified. The EESC welcomes the communication campaigns run by the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights to raise awareness among young people – as well as among judges and legal practitioners – about the impact and repercussions of IP infringements. Very important is also the attention that the Commission has given to SMEs to facilitate their access to means of judicial redress and also supports the European IPorta project, which is a support system for SMEs taking into account issues linked to the enforcement of intellectual property rights and coordinating national assistance. 

Committee urges the Commission to ensure that the means of accessing and effectively protecting intellectual property in Europe are available and affordable to all businesses, regardless of size.

Marie Zvolská
EESC Member – Employers’ Group