Strategy for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries

The main policy objective is to reduce the level of IPR infringements outside the EU – which detrimentally affect EU right holders – while better tailoring our action so as to also take account of specific challenges and needs of for example developing countries. This would help improve both market access for EU right holders, and benefits for third countries (leveraging of their own intellectual assets, etc.).

A secondary objective is to re-state with enhanced clarity the IPR strategy of the Commission towards third countries, justify its rationale, and better communicate it to all stakeholders, such as EU institutions (including the European Parliament), industry and other right holders, authorities of third countries, and NGOs.

Ensuring coherence between the revised IPR strategy and other EU policies (e.g. development policy) is also an objective.