Canada Counters Counterfeiting: Border Enforcement Provisions Of CCPA Come Into Force

After years of calls for reform from intellectual property rights owners, the Canadian government has enacted new legislation in an effort to fight counterfeiters acting on a commercial scale. Bill C-8, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act (CCPA) received royal assent on December 9, 2014. Some provisions of the CCPA came into force at that time, including new criminal and civil causes of action under the Copyright Act and Trade-marks Act, as well as an expanded definition for trade-mark infringement. Other provisions of the CCPA, including those relating to border enforcement measures, came into force on January 1, 2015.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimate that the annual overall cost to the Canadian economy from counterfeiting and piracy is in the billions of dollars. Moreover, the problem seems to be getting worse: the retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP has increased by 500 per cent in the last decade. Canada has long faced