EU IPR border detentions up

The EU has issued a press release congratulating itself on a significant increase in customs activity at the EU's external borders in relation to IPR infringement.

• Over 49 000 customs detentions were registered in 2008, compared to 43,000 in 2007
• 80% of the customs interventions were the result of requests from industry
• There was a sharp increase in 2008 in the actual number of IPR infringing goods detained by customs – 178 million compared to 79 million in 2007
• There was a 2600% increase in the number of DVDs detained
• China was the main source of infringing goods, but other countries were hotspots for particular goods (e.g. India for medicines)

The IPKat notes that there are two ways to read these figures - either customs detection is getting better, or potentially infringing imports are getting more prevalent. Merpel wonders about the huge increase in the number of DVDs - is it because more people have DVD players and so it's more worthwhile importing them?