Application pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 608/2013
National application
A national application is an application for action by the customs pursuant to Art. 5(1) of Regulation (EU) No 608/2013 that is submitted to the competent customs office in a Member State. The Customs will then take action exclusively in the Member State concerned.
Union application
A Union application also has to be submitted to the competent customs office of a Member State (Art. 5(1) of Regulation (EU) No 608/2013). Action is taken in both the Member State where application is submitted and in one or more Member States for which customs action has been requested.
If you are the holder of an IP right with legal effect across the EU (e.g. an EU trade mark, a Community design, a geographical indication), you have the option to apply for action by the customs administration in the other EU Member States.
This application can also be submitted conveniently via the ZGR-online system.
If granted, the authorisation applies in the other Member States covered by your application, and is immediately transmitted to them via the European central database (COPIS). This is why you are asked when submitting your application, to agree that all the information contained in it can be made available to the Member States’ authorities via COPIS. The ZGR-Online database system is directly linked with COPIS through an interface so that there is no need to enter the application details again. Submitting your application through ZGR-Online is convenient, and at the same time you can be sure that the customs authorities in the Member States to which your application refers receive all the information promptly and completely.
In order to ensure smooth handling of all procedures involved it is necessary that you name a contact for the customs authorities in each of the Member States covered by your application. The Regulation therefore requires applicants to give the name and address of a contact person for administrative questions and of a contact person for technical questions.
Ideally, such contact persons should be resident in the Member State for which they have been named. They should also be available to answer queries from the customs authorities at least during usual business hours from Monday to Friday.
Only one national application and one Union application may be submitted in each Member State for the same intellectual property right protected in that Member State. Where a Union application, however, is submitted by the holder of an exclusive licence covering the entire territory of two or more Member States, more than one Union application shall be allowed.
Entitlement to submit an application
Every person holding any of the following intellectual property rights is entitled to submit an application:
- a trade mark;
- a design;
- a copyright or any related right;
- a geographical indication;
- a patent;
- a supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products and plant protection products;
- a plant variety right;
- a topography of semiconductor product;
- a utility model;
- a trade name.
In addition, if they have been authorised to use and/or exercise these rights, the following persons or entities such as
- an intellectual property collective rights management body (collecting society);
- a professional defence body;
- a group representing producers of products with a geographical indication or representatives of such group;
- an economic operator entitled to use a geographical indication;
- a competent inspection body or authority for such a geographical indication; or
- an exclusive licensee.
may submit an application.
The right-holder or the beneficial owner can, of course, have their application submitted by an authorised representative.
The applicant must be entitled to initiate proceedings in order to determine whether an intellectual property right has been infringed. If the applicant is a licensee, an authorisation by the right-holder is required.
Proof of entitlement
If your application concerns trade names, copyrights or unregistered Community designs, you must show documents that demonstrate your entitlement to submit an application.
For all other property rights, there is no need to provide register excerpts or similar documents.
As an applicant, you must be able to prove your entitlement to initiate proceedings to determine whether an intellectual property right has been infringed.
Where the applicant is not himself the right-holder, but only authorised to use and/or exercise the intellectual property right, he is required to provide the right-holder’s formal authorisation to exercise any claims deriving from the right.
Normally, presenting the relevant contracts may satisfy this requirement. It may also suffice to submit the right-holder’s separate, informal authorisation.
Registration on the Customs Portal
The request for seizure is recorded on the internet through the ZGR-online database (the Central Database System for the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights online). Access to this is via the portal for citizens and business customers (BuG portal).
LOGIN: Customs Portal
Information on the online database: ZGR-online
Submission of applications
You will be guided through the application with user-specific data entry windows. Detailed questions will elicit the information needed to file the application. A hints tool built into the user interface will facilitate your data input. You will also be able to access and use a comprehensive user manual.
It is mandatory for all applicants and their authorised representatives (e.g. law firms) to enter an EORI number in the field provided for this purpose. These EORI numbers must be clearly assigned to the applicant or representative. For example, it would not be possible for the EORI number of a subsidiary to be used for the applicant. The EORI number must be applied for by persons established in the European Union in the Member State where they are established. Third-country operators must be registered by the Member State in which they first intend to lodge an application for action by the customs authorities. You do not need to act as an economic operator vis-à-vis the customs administration in the cross-border movement of goods in order to obtain an EORI number.
You can find further information on the EORI number and on the application procedure in particular at this link:
EORI-Number
Furthermore, in addition to the information and supporting documents relating to the applicant and the intellectual property rights concerned, the following information in particular has to be provided without exception when submitting the application:
- specific and technical data about the authentic goods;
- the information that will enable the customs authorities to identify the goods in question easily;
- information that is relevant to the customs authorities’ analysis and assessment of the risk of infringement of the intellectual property right or rights concerned, such as the authorised distributors.
In this context, bear the information in the section "Scope of protection of the application" below in mind.
Once registered on the Customs Portal and using the ELSTER organisation certificate, applications for the border seizure procedure are submitted electronically (without paper copies) to the ZGR office (Central Office for the Protection of Industrial Property). All application contents are transmitted to the ZGR office in encrypted form.
By submitting your application, you commit yourself, in accordance with Article 6 of Regulation (EU) No 608/2013, to comply with the following:
- to notify the ZGR office without delay of any changes in the application data, such as the invalidity of an industrial property right applied for or the fact that the applicant is no longer entitled to file an application,
- to update the information for the purpose of analysing and assessing the risk of an industrial property right infringement,
- to assume liability as the holder of the decision towards the owner of the goods or the applicant if the latter has suffered damage because proceedings initiated under Regulation (EU) 608/2013 have been discontinued due to one of your acts or omissions, or samples and specimens have not been returned, damaged or rendered unusable through your fault, or the goods concerned have been found not to infringe an intellectual property right; and
- to bear the costs incurred by the customs authorities or other parties acting on your behalf.
With the entry into force of Regulation (EU) 608/2013, the electronic anti-Counterfeit anti-Piracy Information System (COPIS) of the European Commission will be implemented. This is a database containing the data of applications for action by the customs authorities. The required information is sent from the ZGR-online system to COPIS and can be consulted by the other Member States. This eliminates the time-consuming process of sending the application documents by post in the case of a Union application, and the other approved Member States can implement the application without delay.
By submitting your application, you consent to the processing of the application data sent by the European Commission and the Member States.
Power of representation
If the application is filed by a legal representative, a valid power of representation of the applicant is required. This has to be uploaded in ZGR-online in the mask provided for this purpose.
Supplementary applications
In the case of suspension of release or detention of goods, the customs authorities shall, upon request, inform the holder of the decision of the names and addresses of the consignee, the consignor, the declarant or the holder of the goods, the customs procedure and the origin, provenance and destination of the goods.
The supplementary applications can generally be submitted together with the application and electronically transmitted to ZGR-online. However, the provision of data may also be requested on an individual basis from the competent customs office for the measure taken and where provided for in the procedure.
The data transmitted can only be used for the following purposes:
- to initiate and in the course of proceedings to determine whether an intellectual property right has been infringed,
- in connection with criminal investigations relating to the infringement of an intellectual property right carried out by authorities in the Member State where the goods were found,
- for the initiation of and in the course of criminal proceedings,
- to assert claims for damages against the offender or other persons,
- to reach an agreement with the declarant or the holder of the goods on the destruction of the goods; and
- to reach agreement with the declarant or the holder of the goods on the amount of security in respect of an early release of the goods.
The holder of the decision may also be provided with samples and specimens on request and solely for the purpose of analysis and to facilitate the subsequent procedure. However, this is only possible if the industrial property rights concerned are a copyright, a design, a trade mark or a geographical indication. Here, too, the application can be made on an individual basis at the intercepting customs office or generally together with the application using the ZGR-online system. The samples and specimens must be returned.
The decision holder shall be provided with the actual or estimated quantity and the actual or presumed nature of the goods and, where appropriate, available images of the goods for each suspension of release/retention of goods.
Application for the use of the small consignment procedure
Are your counterfeits imported in small consignments as postal or express courier items?
If so, then you could be eligible for the socalled small consignment procedure!
In view of the immense increase in the number of small consignments seized through e-commerce, this procedure is intended to provide an efficient and economical method to effectively enforce intellectual property rights.
A small consignment is considered to be the case if it comprises no more than three units or has a gross weight of less than two kilograms and does not contain perishable goods. For example: a consignment comprising a tee shirt, three pairs of socks and five pairs of earrings with a total weight of less than 2 kilograms.
The small consignments procedure can only otherwise be considered for infringements of trade mark rights, copyrights or design rights, and in connection with geographical indications.
The procedure can be carried out by the customs authority without your involvement up to the destruction of the goods. You can find further information on small consignments here:
Special cases (in German)
The costs incurred for the destruction of the goods in the small consignment procedure are to be borne by you.
The application for the small consignment procedure and the declaration to bear the costs of destruction are made as part of the application process.
Request for extension and/or amendment
Once you have entered the complete details of your application in the course of its initial filing, you may access this dataset for further revision at any time.
You can then submit a simple request for extension with a single mouse click.
If you want to make amendments to your application, such as including a new property right or modifying the range of goods under a property right already covered by the original application, you will have all the previously entered details available on your screen as the basis for the amendment request, so you need only revise the appropriate fields.
Because the customs administration is not yet able to process eligible digital signatures, we have not reached the point where we can do completely without paper. This is why, once you have entered your data, the system will generate the application form which must then be printed out, properly signed, and returned to the competent granting authority. At the same time, all the request details will be automatically transmitted, securely encrypted, to the granting authority.
Revising the information indicating an infringement
You do not need any paper to revise the information indicating an infringement. Using ZGR-online you can see which information indicating an infringement the customs has, enter new information and verify that the information is up-to-date, or amend it.
Scope of protection of the application
By your selection of intellectual property rights and of the range of goods to be monitored you also decide when customs shall act on the basis of your application.
Before filing the application, please assess which goods or intellectual property rights are or could be affected by infringements. To allow the customs authority to carry out targeted controls, only the speicific goods or intellectual property rights should be indicated in the application. An excessive scope of protection creates confusion and makes it more difficult for the customs authority to take action.
Before filing the application, please assess which goods or intellectual property rights are affected by infringements. To allow the customs authority to carry out targeted controls, only the speicific goods or intellectual property rights should be indicated in the application. An excessive scope of protection creates confusion and makes it more difficult for the customs authority to take action. This may have a negative impact on the chances of success of your application.
Information to help detect infringements
As part of your application you must provide the customs administration with information that will enable any customs official to distinguish a suspicious consignment from an unobjectionable one. Such information forms the core part of your application. The more comprehensive and up-to-date the data about the authentic goods is, the greater the likelihood that the customs authorities will be able to seize infringing products. The success of an application always depends on the quality of the information supplied. After all, it is you who enables the customs officials to pick out certain consignments and detect infringements.
Please note that sufficiently detailed information of this kind is a requirement for the granting of an application.
Information about the authentic goods
It is through an exact description of the authentic goods that the counterfeit often reveals itself.
You should, therefore collect information about the authentic products. Hold a meeting of your company’s competent staff from the product development, purchasing, marketing, sales, and legal departments (employees who are responsible for the registration and assertion of your property rights). Each contributes information from the area for which they are responsible, so that you finally have a collection of all the relevant information.
You and your employees can provide a joint description of the typical features of an authentic item (for example, the packaging, leaflets included in the packaging, guarantee certificate, instructions, and labels) or provide information about special security features (for example, security threads or holograms); you should also include images of current examples as well as style guides or character guides.
The customs officials on site will focus mainly on invoice, freight and other commercial documents, crates and containers. The revision of documents and registration data is therefore a high priority, which is why you should supply us with information relating to the specific delivery and everybody involved in it. Particularly, try to answer the following questions:
- Are the authentic goods being cleared only at certain customs offices, and if so, which?
- Are the authentic goods being cleared using only a single procedure (for example, the local clearance procedure) or by a specific customs procedure (for example, storage in a customs warehouse)?
- Are the authentic goods being imported, exported, or brought to the market through a particular distribution system (for example, only through a general agency or hauliers)? Are specific modes of transport (air freight, sea freight, road haulage, dispatch by post) used?
- Are your goods specially packed, does the packaging have a special shape, and is it marked in some special way?
- Are outside firms authorised to trade with brand products or how do licensees show that they are legitimate? Think about your company’s system and ask yourself whether everybody who is permitted to trade with your goods should have a written authorisation.
ZGR-online will assist you to structure the information you have collected. You should fill the relevant boxes (for example, delivery details) under the heading "Information about authentic goods" so that the information you have can be made available in a structured form.
Information about infringements
Look for clues, and follow clues that may at first seem unimportant. Do not just take note of what you hear from your customers about infringing (frequently cheaper) competitive products, but question them. Make your employees in the sales department more aware of the counterfeiting problem. You are often the first who hears about cheaper copies of your goods from local and global customers.
If the hunt for clues has been successful, you may know the names and addresses of the companies and persons who appear as producers, sales organisations, intermediaries, carriers, importers, recipients or exporters of infringing products. Enter this important information in ZGR-online under the heading "Information about infringement". Images of counterfeits are not absolutely necessary at this point, as they often only depict an individual case and do not claim to be complete. However, images can be helpful, if for example a forgery is very persistent or harmful to you, and this should be highlighted in the application.
Application processing fee
There is no charge for processing the application.
Period of validity of an application
Applications for action can only be approved for a maximum of one year. You may then extend the validity of an approval for one further year easily, and as often as you wish, via ZGR-online. To keep the approval continuous, you should submit your request for extension not later than 30 days prior to the current application’s date of expiry.
