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Action by the Mexican Attorney-General’s office against counterfeiters

In response to criminal proceedings filed by IPR owners against counterfeiters, the Mexican Attorney-General’s office undertook a series of large-scale actions at the beginning of this year.

These actions included 179 seizures of suspect goods in January and February at the Mexican border, which included a total of 4.1 million individual counterfeit products.

At the moment, the Mexican Attorney-General’s office is not authorised to take actions against piracy and counterfeiting on its own initiative: it can only do so after the IPR holders have files criminal complaints against specific persons or places when they believe counterfeiting is taking place.

If the complaint specifies a public place (or at the Mexican border), the Attorney-General’s officers can act at once, but if it specifies a private place, a special prosecutor of the Attorney-General’s Office must obtain a court order from a federal judge.

In January 2009, the Mexican government created several “virtual judges” (Juzgados Federales Penales Especializados en Cateos, Arraigos e Intervencion de Comunicaciones) for the specific purpose of granting urgent orders for the seizure of suspected counterfeit goods. This means that the special prosecutors can now email their seizure requests to the “virtual judges” who must then issue electronic court orders within 24 hours.

Besides actual evidence of fake products, the judges must take into consideration the use of markings, including “®”, “MR” and/or “MARCA REGISTRADA” on the goods. If any of these symbols are used by the trade mark owner, it is still able to obtain a court order for the seizure of the goods but the judge is not allowed to issue a warrant for the arrest of the counterfeiter and may not be able to declare the existence of a crime. Finally, the award of damages depends on this notice.