TECHNICAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES: INFORMATION FROM
OTHER INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
World Customs Organization (WCO)
At its meeting of 14-15
June 2023, the Council for TRIPS agreed to invite intergovernmental
organization observers to the Council to update the information on their
technical and financial cooperation programmes relating to the implementation
of the TRIPS Agreement.
The
present document reproduces the information which has been received from the World
Customs Organization (WCO) by means of a communication
dated 13
September 2023.
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1 Overview of World Customs
Organization (WCO) activities and tools of relevance to the TRIPS
Agreement
1. The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), Health and Safety Programme
of the World Customs Organization (WCO) maintains its resolve to protect
consumer health and safety, and continues to combat counterfeiting and piracy
through a variety of activities described in the following paragraphs. The WCO
experience in this field is in line with the other international organizations
working in the field of IPR enforcement. There seems to be a shift of the modus
operandi towards the use of small consignments thus reducing the numbers of
large seizures, but there does not seem to be any significant fall in the
number of counterfeits traded globally. The WCO's main activity is to raise
awareness about customs work in this area either towards other international
organizations or by promoting capacity building activities for our member
administrations. The capacity building consists of two factors; training
through workshops and education and training through operational activities. A
list of the WCO activities is attached in the Annex.
1.1 Operations
2. The WCO organizes simultaneous enforcement activities with multiple
customs administrations. These operations are aimed at knowing the scale of
global counterfeiting whilst providing participating customs officers with
hands-on experience. Operations, which quantify and qualify the impact of
counterfeit activities, can also serve as an excellent opportunity to
strengthen Customs' enforcement capacity. Participating members are able to
learn about practical border enforcement measures through our Accredited
Experts and gain hands-on experience using WCO tools, such as the IPR CENcomm
Group.
3. The IPR CENcomm Group is a secure communication tool used for data
exchange on IPR enforcement, enabling real time sharing of information between
WCO members. WCO Operation STOP and STOP II respectively held in 2020 and 2021
to 2022, was for fighting against illicit medicines and medical products linked
to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating members used the IPR CENcomm Group to
report their seizures and the WCO secretariat shared information alerts to
members through the platform.
1.2 National/Regional seminars
4. The WCO delivers extensive capacity building activities, mainly in
the form of legislative training, document targeting training and product
identification training, with private sector cooperation. But the organization
also performs diagnostic missions. In the diagnostic missions, WCO experts
visit the country and assess the Customs administrations capabilities in the
domain of fighting counterfeits. The evaluation includes both the legal base
and practical and procedural arrangements, and leads to a recommendation from
WCO. The WCO conducted several training seminars/workshops for officers from a
number of WCO member administrations in this reporting period.
1.3 Counterfeit and Piracy Group (CAP) meeting
5. The annual WCO Counterfeiting and Piracy (CAP) Group meeting
provides a forum for customs and related law enforcement agencies to exchange
information, experiences and best practices on combating counterfeiting and
piracy. During this meeting, members shared their experiences and exchanged
practices on fighting counterfeits.
1.4 E-learning module
(CLiCK)
6. By using the WCO's internet-based e-learning module 'CLiCK', customs
officers can acquire practical knowledge on border enforcement related to IPR.
They can train themselves on intellectual property (IP) agreements, such
as the TRIPS Agreement, and on practical, risk-based document targeting.