As a party involved, obtain information about goods detained by customs

If your goods are detained on suspicion of counterfeiting, customs will inform you of the next steps.

If goods are suspected of infringing intellectual property rights, customs authorities can detain them at the border or suspend their further clearance. This prevents infringing goods from entering the internal market. The holder of these rights can apply for this procedure with the customs authority.

If an authorization has been granted and suspicious goods are found, customs will inform you of this during the customs clearance process. The rights holder can inspect the goods. This can be followed by various steps:

• The goods will be destroyed under customs supervision if the necessary conditions are met. If the goods belong to you or you have declared them, you may consent to the destruction. Your consent is also deemed to have been given if you do not object to the destruction within the time limit.
• If you object to the destruction, the copyright holder must initiate civil proceedings to determine the infringement.
• If the infringement of intellectual property rights is not confirmed or if the rights holder has not initiated civil court proceedings, the goods will continue to be cleared or released.

Through the inbox in the customs portal, you will receive notifications and official notices from the customs authorities if

• an application for action by the customs authorities was granted and
• Your goods were detained due to a suspected infringement.

The procedure then proceeds as follows:

• When customs authorities identify suspicious goods,
  • do they withhold them, or
  • suspend the dispatch.
• Customs authorities will inform you of the facts of the case. Within the specified time limit, you may consent to or object to the destruction of the goods.
• If you object to the destruction, the rights holder must initiate civil proceedings. In this case, the goods will be held by customs authorities until a decision has been made regarding the alleged infringement.
• You will receive a notification informing you of the decision regarding destruction.
• Depending on the decision, the goods will be destroyed or released under customs supervision.

To be able to submit and retrieve notifications and decisions online, the following conditions must be met:

• You must create—or have already created—a business customer account or a citizen account on the customs portal.
• When submitting a customs declaration, be sure to include the email address associated with your business customer account or citizen account.

In addition, to access notices electronically, you must

• activate consent on the Customs Portal for the electronic notification of decisions via data retrieval, and
• have accessed the “Intellectual Property“ service on the Customs Portal at least once.

You can log in to the portal by:

• Email and password (limited scope of use)
• ELSTER Certificate (full scope of use)
• New German identity card (full scope of use)
• BundID (full range of functions)

If the requirements for electronic delivery are not met, notices and decisions will be sent by mail.

The period for filing an objection after receiving notice of goods held is:

• 3 days for perishable goods,
  • provided that this deadline cannot be extended, and
• 10 days for non-perishable goods.

Within this time frame, you may consent to or object to the destruction.

You have one month from the date of notification to file an objection to the decision to destroy the goods. This applies only to non-perishable goods.

You will receive information and notices from the customs authorities free of charge.

• Objection to the Detention of the Goods
• Objection to the Decision to Destroy
  • Detailed information on how to file an appeal can be found in the notice.