About one year ago Russian Customs drastically intensified its efforts in intercepting the illegal transit of goods across the border. Spurred by the World Customs Organization, the Russian Customs will make the year 2007 the year of combating counterfeiting. There are many reasons for that. The Russian Customs acknowledge that intellectual property rights infringement is the most frequent occurrence among economic offences. According to the Customs, the most frequently stopped goods at the border are confectionery, sports clothes and shoes, perfumes and household chemistry. This means that trade mark infringement is the biggest problem. Competing with trade marks are copyrighted products, such as DVDs and Cds. Piracy of videocassettes is becoming less frequent due to the dwindling demand for video tape gadgetry.

By the end of 2006 Russian Customs proudly reported that it had stopped counterfeit goods worth slightly less than $1.5 million. Hundreds of administrative cases and more than 10 criminal cases were initiated. Customs are becoming more active on the domestic market. The point is that the Customs Code of the Russian Federation allows Customs to conduct so-called post clearance checks. This means that the Customs officers may visit any retail outlet selling imported goods and make spot checks. They frequently avail themselves of this opportunity.

Customs also check illegal exports. Last year they did not clear exported goods in more than 100 cases on the basis of applications by trade mark owners.

Despite the fact that the volume of the counterfeit goods grows, partly because the general economic situation is improving, market analysts believe that the situation in Russia as far as the counterfeit goods are concerned has become better. As an example one could cite the situation with household appliances, electronic equipment and cell phones. Some time ago counterfeit goods prevailed on the market. Now, one has to try hard to find a counterfeit TV or a cell phone, often without success. The legitimate supplies dominate the market with grey goods taking just a small share.

Worse is the situation with confectionery. Perfumery is also a favourite product of the counterfeiters. Aside from direct knockoffs the counterfeiters put their head in the sand by naming their products, for example, Huge Bouse instead of Hugo Boss. Yet another producer went even farther. He named his product as Mugo Voss and warned the consumers in a small inscription on the back of the package that his product should not be confused with the original (without naming Hugo Boss) and that his product competes with the original one. Such counterfeiters are difficult to prosecute though buyers should be more attentive too.

Russian Customs introduced a Register of Intellectual Property several years ago and it has proved its efficiency. Now there are about 800 trade marks registered there. But registration in the Register is not a prerequisite for detaining counterfeits. If Customs officers are suspicious about the origin of the goods they detain them and clarify the situation, often with the assistance of trade mark practitioners. What they really lack now is cooperation on the part of the trade mark owners. Often enough they have been confronted with the complete disregard of their pleas by the trade mark or copyright owners and had to release the counterfeit goods to the market. Now they are trying to have the Customs Code amended so that they should have the right to arrest the goods without applications being made by the IP owners. Russian Customs would like to model its behaviour on that of the Italian Customs where the buyer of the counterfeit product is liable for having bought a counterfeit product. Hopefully, this last initiative will fail.