EU statistics on enforcement at the EU external border

The EU Commission publishes annually statistics on the number of detained goods at the EU's external customs borders

The detentions are carried out under the EU Customs Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 1383/2003 concerning customs action), which provides rules for customs action against goods suspected of infringing certain intellectual property rights. The regulation only concerns goods coming from countries outside the EU and that crosses the EU customs borders. The customs authorities shall, in accordance to the customs regulation, detain goods that they suspect of being counterfeited or pirated. The Commissions statistics of detained goods are available on the Commission's website along with a brief mention of the trends. Such statistics provide some indications of changes in trends of the product types being counterfeited or pirated. Statistics also form the basis of assumptions about which countries produce the counterfeited and pirated goods as well as showing patterns in the transportation routes.