Copyright infringement ongoing fight in Baltics

Latvia has made progress cracking down on intellectual property theft, but officials say there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Speaking at an international conference in Riga Sept. 17, Justice Minister Ingrida Labucka said the country must step up enforcement of intellectual property laws and educate consumers about buying only genuine articles.

"Latvia has done a lot in the last decade to protect intellectual property rights, but we are aware that we have to enforce the laws we have," Labucka said. "We have to create a fair business environment where the public is educated so they'll only use legal products."

Baltic entrepreneurs and corporate CEOs who attended this week's conference in Riga agreed.

"Over the last decade, resources of an intellectual nature, as opposed to physical assets, have become of crucial importance to economic activity and growth," said Jeno Bobrovszky, acting director of the World Intellectual Property Organization. "When consumers use pirated or counterfeit products their health and safety are jeopardized."

Anitha Forssberg, a senior attorney for Microsoft's law and corporate affairs division in the Nordic region, said more than 2 million Web pages in the world are pirated or counterfeited and that this is undermining the credibility of certain products bought over the Internet.

"Intellectual or intangible works are among the most popular products sold and advertised. They need to be protected so that people keep investing," said Forssberg. "If users view the Internet as lawless, they might confuse legal products with illegal products or, in the long run, not dare to use the Internet."

The European Union has pressed candidate countries such as Latvia and its Baltic neighbors, Lithuania and Estonia, to crack down on intellectual property theft, including pirated software and music.

But while some speakers at the conference conceded that a dent in pirated sales has been, made existing laws need to be enforced more evenly.

Tom J. Thompson, vice president of the Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights said the best means of protection against piracy was registering all trademarks.

"The best medicine is to make sure that your trademark is registered with the appropriate authorities in every country where business, using the trademark, is carried out," he said.

He explained that it took time, money and effort to obtain a recognized trademark and warned that brand names were very susceptible to copyright infringements.

"A trademark requires long-term investments, it guarantees quality and the origin of the product, it guides consumer trust but it is also vulnerable," he said.

According to the coalition, $650 billion is lost on sales annually because of pirated and counterfeited goods. Billions are lost in government revenues, injuries and deaths occur due to fake products and about 200,000 jobs are lost every year.