Wine and spirits industries lose €1.3bn due to ‘lack of knowledge’

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has said the wine and spirits industries lose €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) in revenue every year because of a “lack of knowledge” about intellectual property infringements.

The findings were published in a EUIPO report called “The economic cost of IPR infringement in spirits and wine”.

The report was published in collaboration with the European Patent Office and the European Observatory, a network for sharing best practices for dealing with infringement.

It studied the role of IP and the negative aspects of infringements.

The study found that legitimate wine and spirit industries lose €1.3 billion in annual revenue due to counterfeits.

According to the report, a “major problem which has hindered the effective enforcement of IPRs in the EU is related to a lack of knowledge” about the precise scope, scale and impact of infringements.

It added that businesses have suffered because of the absence of a “consistent methodology” for analysing data on counterfeiting across different sectors.

The full report can be viewed here.