PETOŠEVIĆ Hosts INTA Roundtable in Macedonia

On October 17, 2014, PETOŠEVIĆ Macedonia held an INTA roundtable on the online sale of counterfeit goods. The event was held in the amphitheater of the Faculty of Economics in Skopje.

Approximately 50 people attended the roundtable, including Mr. Kiril Minoski, director of the State Market Inspectorate, Mr. Rade Mitevski, assistant director for excise taxes and non-tariff measures with the Macedonian Customs, Mr. Mite Kostov, president of the Coordinative Body for Intellectual Property Protection, and Mr. Marjan Stoilkovski, Head of Internet Crime and Digital Forensics Department at the Ministry of Interior. The rest of the participants included representatives from the Ministry of Interior, the Customs, the Industrial Property Office, the State Market Inspectorate, Macedonian Academic Research Network (MARNET), the biggest auction site in Macedonia, and other IP professionals.

Mr. Goran Bogatinovski, Head of Department for Non-Tariff measures and IPR at Macedonian Customs Administration, provided insights on the proposed legislation amendments regarding small consignments. These amendments, once adopted, should be in line with the EU regulation, i.e. a small consignment will be defined as the one containing three units or less or having a gross weight of less than 2kg. In case small consignments are suspected of infringing IP rights, the Customs will notify the importer ex officio, and if the importer has no objections (tacit consent), they will proceed with the destruction.

Mr. Mite Kostov presented how the Coordinative Body handles counterfeiting cases in general. As he informed, so far they have only had a few online counterfeiting cases. He encouraged all participants to inform the Coordinative Body about any counterfeits offered online.

Members from the biggest auction site in Macedonia, Pazar3 – www.pazar3.mk, also attended the event. Some of the roundtable participants stated that they had great experience with Pazar3 concerning the take down notices.

Mr. Marjan Stoilkovski provided useful information on identifying online infringers.

The roundtable was successful, as all attendees actively participated in the discussions. The general feedback was that these kinds of events are always useful.

You can see the photos from the event in our Gallery.

For more information, please contact Darko Bajalski at our Macedonia office.