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Important survey for companies in the EU re protection of intellectual property rights

The European Commission is conducting a new survey regarding IPR protection and enforcement in third countries, targeting EU companies established or operating in third countries.

The Commission would like as many EU right holders (and Member States' officials where appropriate) as possible to participate in this survey, and have asked that the details of the survey be disseminated as broadly as possible, including to Embassies in third countries.

The survey can be accessed at http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=IPRsurvey2010

Deadline for responses is 31 October 2010.

Responses to the survey will be taken into account by the Directorate General in the European Commission responsible for TRADE when it reviews its future priorities for IP enforcement and protection. The survey data will also help the Commission to update its list of "priority countries" with regard to enforcement [cf. IPR Enforcement Report 2009 http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2009/october/tradoc_145204.pdf]

Similar exercises were conducted in 2003 and 2006 see http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/trade-topics/intellectual-property/enforcement/

Historically, responses to past surveys have been very low, with the Commission only receiving 287 responses to the last survey. Given that the Commission bases some of its enforcement priorities on this data we'd like to ensure that this year's survey results include as much information as possible.