Alexis Mera says that changes to the COIP correspond to treaty with the WTO

The Legal Secretary of the Presidency, Alexis Mera, talked about the reforms to the Integral Criminal Code (COIP). The authority said that reforms on intellectual property crimes reflect a concern to comply with the treaty with the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Mera said that President Rafael Correa “has no interest in patching the code, which I do not think it requires reforms of form or substance, is a good Code-, but we must comply with a treaty.

“The agreement in Article 61 states that members will establish criminal procedures and penalties at least in cases of willful trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy on a commercial scale (…)”.

Mera said that he is in favor of the sanctions being minor. “We do not want to put excessive or extraordinary sanctions”, he said. Therefore, it was raised as sanctions for these offenses fines and no imprisonment. The proposal is that fines are between $ 500 to $ 200 thousand for cases of piracy and between $ 500 to $ 500 thousand in case of company brands.