In January this year Estonia adopted several amendments to the laws regulating the protection of intellectual property and in particular the sanctions for the infringement of intellectual property rights. The amendments had been due to the need both to solve the problems arising during the implementation of these laws thus far and harmonizing the laws with EC Directives in this field.
All the amendments are designed to make the fight against pirated and counterfeit goods more effective and in this way to prevent any further distribution of counterfeit goods in Estonia.
As for the amendments to the Copyright Law, these had been prepared following Council Directive 92/100/EEC of 19 November 1992 on rental right and lending right and on certain rights related to copyright in the field of intellectual property, and Council Directive 93/98/EEC of 29 October 1993 harmonizing the term of protection of copyright and certain related right. There are remarkable amendments in the chapter on the liability for infringement of copyright whereas the sanctions have become stricter, including obligatory confiscation of counterfeit goods as well as severe fines.
A new chapter regulating sanctions for infringement of intellectual property rights has also been added to the Criminal Code.
The amended Customs Law enables the customs authorities to act more independently at the request of the owner of the intellectual property rights in preventing any export or import of counterfeit goods.
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