Study on legislative measures related to online IPR infringements

Intellectual property right (IPR) infringement has taken and increasingly takes place in the online environment, in particular on the internet, which has raised concerns on many different levels, and has led to a number of recent European initiatives. A number of legislative measures have been adopted at both international and European levels whose purposes are to strengthen and harmonise the protection of IPR. These measures include remedies, which aim to enable rights holders and law enforcement authorities, such as prosecutors, to enforce IPR in an effective manner. However, the provisions in the abovementioned legislation are, for the most part, not drafted in ways that specifically address how to prevent or combat online IPR infringement, but are -merely in the form of minimum requirements, which leave room for individual Member States to adopt and apply specific national measures. Previous Observatory studies have looked into IPR infringement in the online environment, but none of them have dealt with the issue as to which concrete, existing, legislative measures can be used to prevent or combat online IPR infringement. The main purpose of this study is, therefore, to establish whether and to what extent a number of specific legislative measures, which can be applied to prevent or combat IPR infringement in the online environment, are available in the Member States. The legislative measures that the study will focus on are measures that can be characterised as providing 'practical solutions to practical problems', such as the option to require that an online service provider discloses the identity of a customer who is suspected of infringing the IPR rights of a third party and the option to apply the European Investigation Order (EIO) to crimes involving IPR.