NATIONAL LAW IMPLEMENTING THE ENFORCEMENT DIRECTIVE

A. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY LAW

Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 (the “Enforcement Directive” or “IPRED”) on the enforcement of intellectual property rights has entailed amendments to the following Swedish intellectual property rights (“IPR”) acts:

B. TRANSPOSITION ISSUES

At the time of implementation, the legislator concluded that Swedish law satisfied the requirements of the Enforcement Directive to a large extent. However, national law lacked provisions corresponding to some measures. This related to, for example, injunctions to counter attempts or preparations for infringements and measures under Article 8 and Article 15.

There were also uncertainties regarding the legal position in national law which had to be considered. A contributing factor here was the fact that some measures in the Enforcement Directive were prescribed in the IPR acts and/or in the Swedish Code of Judicial Procedure (CJP). Several of these issues were resolved by amendments to the IPR acts that clarified the legal position in national law.

C. ASSESSMENT REPORTS ON IMPLEMENTATION

There seem to be no external reports pertaining to the implementation of the Enforcement Directive in Sweden. In 2012, the Swedish government issued a report, “Evaluation of the IPRED legislation”.1 The report outlined the application of the Enforcement Directive in practice to infringements committed via the Internet or other electronic communications services. It also dealt with the current situation with fi le-sharing, including public attitudes to fi le-sharing in general, and summarised the cases with information injunctions brought before the Swedish courts.