Case Explained: Intellectual Property Crime Project | Eurojust – Legal Perspective

Analysis and reporting: analysing case law and key pieces of legislation offers a better understanding of how IP crimes are regulated and enforced at national and EU level. Reports and comparative analyses prepared by the IPC Project, and shared with judicial authorities, dive deeper into the relevant aspects of IP crime, highlight how key issues are handled in courts and help to share existing legal knowledge. By engaging with law enforcement and judicial authorities, the Project can look more closely at the crime landscape and assess how current trends and new developments will translate into emerging legal issues for the prosecution and courts in the future.

Awareness raising and capacity building: increasing the profile of IPC within the judiciary and strengthen practitioners’ knowledge base will result in more cases being identified and successfully prosecuted. To that end, the Project produces factsheets and other materials on emerging or recurrent IPC issues. It also organises workshops, webinars, conferences and training activities to enable prosecutors and judges to exchange knowledge and best practices, acquire new expertise and tools, and to keep the judicial community up to date on current and future developments.

Cooperation with stakeholders: the work conducted by the Project serves to build closer cooperation with national authorities and other relevant actors. These include EU Member States and third countries (TCs), EU agencies and bodies, such as Europol (AP Copy) and OLAF, international organisations, including WIPO and Interpol and, where required, private sector representatives. Through the IPC Project, Eurojust is also a member of the EMPACT Operational Action Plan on IP crime, counterfeiting of goods and currencies. Eurojust adds value to EMPACT by bringing to it a judicial perspective and supporting Member States (MSs) and participating TCs in their operational efforts to disrupt and dismantle organised crime groups involved in counterfeiting and piracy.

Support to Eurojust’s operational work: the IPC Project provides support by facilitating the exchange of IPC-specific knowledge, including on criminal business models. It also helps to identify and locate the appropriate private sector rights holder and other information relevant to the cases dealt with by Eurojust and the National Desks.