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Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
Press release23 April 2018Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

More organisations sign agreement to help fight counterfeiting

Today, 3 more businesses and 1 association signed up to a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the sale of counterfeit goods via the internet. This initiative, facilitated by the European Commission brings together right owners of products for which counterfeit versions are often sold online, with internet platforms and associations.

The new signatories to the MoU are the Motion Picture Association, Philip Morris International, Philipp Plein and Zanellato. They join the 19 other stakeholders already working together under the agreement.

Counterfeit products damage businesses, have a negative impact on jobs and tax revenues and often endanger the health of consumers.

The Commission encourages cooperation under the MoU, which remains open for other stakeholders to join.

The MoU was first signed in 2011 and revised in 2016. In November 2017, as part of the package of measures on intellectual property, the Commission released a report on the functioning of the MoU. The report showed that the MoU brought positive results and improved cooperation between right owners and internet platforms. The regular meetings of the signatories and the measurement of effects on the basis of key performance indicators stimulate participants to overcome existing challenges and identify best practices, e.g. on content identification and tracking technologies.

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