In the period of April 18-19, within the premises of AGEPI, was held a training seminar in the field of enforcement of intellectual property rights and anti-counterfeiting, organized in cooperation with the Anti-Counterfeiting Association REACT International and Civil Lawyers Society TURCU & TURCU.

The seminar aimed to widen the cooperation with nongovernmental organizations and governmental structures working in the field of protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights to jointly identify actions to counteract counterfeiting of trademarks.

The reunion was attended by AGEPI specialists, representatives of Civil Lawyers Society TURCU & TURCU, you EUBAM PUMA firms, CANON, Ministry of Interior, General Prosecutor's Office, Customs and other competent institutions in the enforcement of IP rights protection.

At the opening of the seminar, Lilia Bolocan, Director General of the State Agency on Intellectual Property of the Republic of Moldova, welcomed the annual tradition of organizing such meetings with the view of joining efforts of specialists in the field, generating new ideas and solutions to combat the global scourge - counterfeiting.

Dorian Chirosca, REACT representative in the Republic of Moldova and moderator of the seminar, presented in detail the procedure for identifying the original production of certain leading companies, such as STIHL, P&G, BJORN BORG, ADIDAS, etc.

Participants in the seminar took an active part in discussions on authorities’ expectations about the actions/measures that right holders could take to streamline the struggle against anti-counterfeiting, the procedure for submission of applications for customs intervention, the procedure for destruction of counterfeit goods, including those that threaten the environment, international practice on IT tools of cooperation between the control institutions and between them and right holders, databases on identification elements – original product opposite to the counterfeit product, the procedure for determining the damage value, Romanian experience on the procedure for ex officio action by customs and on the internal market, etc.

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N.B.: How to recognize original products?

• Price: should be the first warning sign. No tax or duty free products. A lower price is automatically suspicious and should raise suspicion of potential customers.
• Packaging: it must be intact.
• Conditions of sale: original products are not sold outside distribution networks. Store “face” says a lot about the real origin of the products sold.
• Custom labels: original products, especially for clothing, are sold only with custom labels.