Through international cooperation, Serbia is ready to take part in battle against organized crime in the intellectual property field in the Western Balkans, it was assessed at a gathering on this topic in Belgrade. More from Sandra Pekić.
Serbia has all the necessary institutional and operative means for efficient cooperation with Interpol in battle against organized crime in the intellectual property field and can become a regional leader in that battle, an inspector in Interpol’s department in charge of combating intellectual property crime, Simone di Meo, said. Serbia should promote cooperation with European and international institutions and raise public awareness of the danger piracy constitutes to all spheres of society, he specified. The already good cooperation between Serbia and Interpol reflects in constant training of staff from Serbia in the fields of judiciary, police and customs, he emphasized. A Europol analyst, Herve Labri, emphasized that this law enforcement agency had a central database, as intellectual property theft is very often connected with other forms of organized crime.
The director of the Intellectual Property Bureau, Branka Totić, underlined that Serbia had adopted a strategy for battle against intellectual property theft for the period 2012-2015, with emphasis on battle against piracy infringements and counterfeiting. The head of the Serbian Interior Ministry’s Department for Curbing Intellectual Property Crimes, Mikajlo Tijanić, said that the crime rate in that field had been reduced by more than 20% in 2011. More than 43,000 pieces of various products have been withdrawn from the Serbian market on suspicion of their infringing intellectual property rights, he said. Such products include discs with recorded content without a production code, textile and food products, sports equipment, books, toys and spare parts for cars. Vera Despotović, of the Market Inspection of the Ministry of Agriculture, Trade and Water Management, stressed that between 50,000 and 100,000 forged product items were discovered annually.