On July 14, 2005, the Romanian Government has adopted a Decree
transposing EC/48/2004 regarding the enforcement of intellectual
property rights. The date of entering into force was: July 20, 2005.
What's new?
It introduces the "right to information", a new concept in the
Romanian legislation, by which the counterfeiters or other persons that
have manipulated the counterfeit goods are bound to disclose the origin
of goods with full details;
The counterfeiter may be compelled to advertise the Court Decision,
even at a large scale, on its own expenses;
The punitive damages should proportional with the damages caused by
the counterfeited goods;
It speeds up the process of obtaining a Court Decision against
counterfeiters;
The Court of Law may adopt provisional measures in order to prevent
further damages. These can be adopted by Presidential Decree, within
one week, without notifying the other party;
Additional measures can be adopted as well, such as: temporary
withdrawal of the counterfeit goods from commercial circuits, permanent
withdrawal of the counterfeit goods from commercial circuits as well as
the destruction of the counterfeit goods;
The Law also provides protective alternatives for the counterfeiters
in case they have been unaware of the rights they infringed and acted
without intention or by imprudence. However, they will have to pay the
damages.
The importance of this Decree:
It is regarded as an unification of all Romanian legal provisions
regarding the enforcement of intellectual property rights;
It paves the way to a complete legal harmonization between Romanian
Laws and European Laws.