Estonian customs authorities have started active fight against pirated and counterfeited goods. Within last few months different counterfeited goods bearing such famous trademarks as NIKE, ADIDAS, FILA, SALAMANDER and WRANGLER have been arrested in the customs of Tallinn Airport. In general these goods of Chinese or Turkish origin are of extremely bad quality (although there are still some exemptions).
Under the Customs Act the customs officials shall prevent import or export of counterfeited goods only on the grounds of a written court order. But to issue the court order the location of the goods and recipient must be known which makes the whole proceeding a bit awkward. Further amendments are expected to the law soon, allowing the Customs authorities to act ex officio.
Nevertheless, at present in practice the goods which are doubted to be counterfeited, are held by the customs to find out the origin of the goods and inform the trademark owner of the possible counterfeit. The trademark owner is entitled to present the court decree within ten days. If the trademark owner is interested in conducting an examination of the counterfeited goods, he can get an example from the customs, but it has to be returned later. The goods will be let free from the customs, if the trademark owner is not interested in starting legal proceedings.
Thus, quickness is quite decisive in the fight with counterfeit in Estonia. It is important to note that for several reasons not all the trademark attorneys handle the problems connected with counterfeited goods. But the first information from the customs reaches namely trademark attorney. To fight effectively against counterfeit any trademark owner should find out whether his local attorney handles these problems, or not. Next, the attorney should be informed with whom he has to contact to receive the information concerning possible counterfeit, the quantity of goods when the trademark owner is interested in starting legal proceedings and who conducts the examination of the goods if necessary.
Some of the Estonian patent and trademark attorneys (including the author of this article) are the members of Anti-Counterfeiting Group and Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau. Membership of such kind of international organisations definitely improves one's ability to fight against counterfeits.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
