EUBAM congratulates two of its key partner services, Moldova’s Customs Service and Moldova’s State Agency on Intellectual Property (AGEPI) on World Intellectual Property Day, which is celebrated today.

To mark the occasion, EUBAM is supporting both services to raise the awareness of intellectual property rights in Moldova. A public campaign, initiated together with the World Intellectual Property Organisation, has been launched on the theme of Innovation – Improving Lives. It will remind Moldovan citizens of the damage counterfeit and pirated goods can have on the development of medical, food, transport and energy innovations.

EUBAM is proud to support the campaign by printing posters and materials which are being prominently displayed throughout the country, as well as distributed at border crossing points and the administrative boundary.

AGEPI and Moldova’s Customs Service are the main government services protecting Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Moldova. AGEPI is responsible for promoting and enforcing the legal protection of IPR, whilst the Customs Service play an important role in identifying and detaining goods suspected of infringing IPR at the border.

In 2016, the Moldovan Customs Service seized 35 consignments of goods suspected of infringing an intellectual property right, covering 80 different rights, all being trademark infringements. 63% of seizures related to clothes, shoes, cosmetics and hygiene products, whilst perfumes and food products accounted for 23%.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the EU’s Intellectual Property Office in  2016, imports of counterfeit and pirated goods were worth nearly half a trillion dollars, or about 2.5% of global imports.

To learn more about Intellectual Property Rights and EUBAM’s support in protecting them in Ukraine and Moldova, please visit: http://eubam.org/what-we-do/intellectual-property-rights-ipr/