28. The representative of the World Customs Organization (WCO) said that the WCO had had for a number of years an international enforcement database on all enforcement issues relating to customs. Within that context, the WCO had recently built a separate database for intellectual property rights infringements which contained information that the WCO had obtained both from members and from the trade about violations, non-violations, patterns of operation, trafficking patterns and violators. In addition, as part of this database, the WCO had a list of contact points that customs administrations had provided of persons responsible within their administrations for the enforcement of intellectual property rights. This list included a list of people in the trade who could provide information, if needed by customs, about the specifics of products. This database was in the course of being built up. There was separately a contact point list for all information on enforcement matters with customs. The experience of the WCO was that customs contacted each other and cooperated on these matters and that they communicated to each other the difficulties they had had in this context and which their counterparts might come across as well.
