Canada has been criticized internationally for many years for
not having an effective regime for enforcing against counterfeit
goods. Need for reform was expressly recognized by two Canadian
parliamentary committees in 2007. The CCPA finally addresses the
issue by proposing trade-mark prohibitions and offences, and new
customs measures for detaining counterfeits.
In our opinion, debate on the proposed Combating Counterfeit
Products Act ("CCPA") should not concentrate on
whether it is compliant with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement ("ACTA") or other international treaties, but
instead whether it provides effective measures for addressing the
problem of black market distribution of goods bearing counterfeit
trade-marks and pirated copyright works (collectively
"counterfeits") in Canada. There is little doubt
requirements under ACTA were a consideration in drafting the CCPA
and the border provisions appear to be modeled on the World Customs
Organization's "Model
