Canada enacts new border enforcement regime

The New Year brought tough new enforcement laws for those selling goods into the Canadian market, allowing rights holders to take action against pirated and counterfeit goods before they enter the country.

The new rules, specifically sections 2, 5 and 6, subsection 7(6) and sections 43, 44 and 60 of the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, came into force on January 1.

The legislation seeks to combat two types of intellectual property rights infringement, namely: copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting.

To do this there will be a range of new rules to protect literary and artistic works (e.g., books and other writings, musical compositions, paintings, sculptures, computer programmes and films).

By amending the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act new remedial measures to strengthen the enforcement of the intellectual property rights protected under these statutes.

The Act also gives new border enforcement measures that include the creation of a request for assistance (RFA) system and the enabling of customs officers to detain goods suspected of infringing copyright or trademark rights.

The Act also amends subsection 107(5) of the Customs Act to allow customs officers to share certain information relating to the detained goods with rights owners.

The Canadian government says that these new border measures "will further support the civil enforcement of these intellectual property rights by giving the rights owners the information and assistance necessary to pursue a remedy in civil court or to reach an out-of-court settlement with importers and exporters of infringing goods".

In both the Trade-marks Act and Copyright Act, the Act creates a new prohibition of the commercial-scale importation and exportation of counterfeit trademark goods and labels, and pirated copyright goods.

These provisions give customs officers the ex officio authority to proactively search for and detain suspected counterfeit trademark goods, labels or packaging as well as for suspected pirated copyright goods.

The Canadian government says it takes the emerging threat of counterfeiting and piracy "very seriously".

The retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is stated to have increased from $7.6m in 2005 to $38m in 2012.