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18 ERA F. 1 (2017-2018)

handle is hein.journals/erafrum18 and id is 1 raw text is: ERA Forum (2017) 18:1-6 DOI 10.1007/s12027-017-0464-5 CossMark | IP 1 R E ..| Achievements in civil intellectual property enforcement and recent initiatives within the Digital Single Market Strategy on the regulatory environment for platforms and online intermediaries Florence Hartmann-Vareilles1 E7 RA EUROPA CHE RECHTEAKADEMEM ACADEMY OF EUROPEANo LAW! Published online: 22 June 2017 © ERA 2017 -TrE.f- 1 Illicit trade in pirated and counterfeit goods in the European Union: a major global challenge for the economy Since the adoption and the implementation of an EU legal framework less than fifteen years ago in order to tackle the infringement of intellectual property rights through civil and customs measures, illicit trade in pirated and counterfeit goods has remained a major global challenge.1 Such practices have negative impacts on the turnover of affected firms, causing damage to their reputation and generating high monitoring and enforcement costs. The phenomenon is aggravated by the fact that copyright pirates and counterfeiters are two or three steps ahead of law enforcers, and are getting extremely sophisti- cated in their infringement techniques. The high costs and complexity of litigation often dissuade smaller companies from enforcing their intellectual property rights. The worldwide reach of the internet, the facility to use online payments and the anonymity gained through operating via the internet are all factors which facilitate counterfeit sales of goods and services online. This is accentuated all the more by the existence of a certain level of tolerance, a lack of awareness or even sometimes 1For an evaluation of the costs associated with intellectual property infringements, see the range of publica- tions prepared by the European observatory on infringements of intellectual property rights at https://euipo. europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/observatory/observatory-publications. [ E Hartmann-Vareilles thartmann @era.int 1 Head of Section, Business Law Section, Academy of European Law (ERA), Metzer Alle 4, 54295 Trier, Germany '_ Springer