Counterfeit products law changes in Poland.

In May 2005, the Polish Supreme Court handed down a decision that gave Polish prosecutors permission to prosecute only companies that manufactured counterfeit goods. Sellers were in effect, protected. "For the past two years, stallholders who sold fake goods in open-air markets in Poland have known that there was little that the authorities could do to stop them," says a September 10, 2007 posting on the website of the magazine Managing Intellectual Property (London).

Many stall operators actually framed the court decision to warn the police away.

But on September 1, 2007, changes in the law came into effect that allows anyone involved in the buying, selling or manufacturing of counterfeit goods to be prosecuted.

Not surprisingly, owners of patents and copyrights are delighted. Consumers may benefit as well. One activist quoted by the magazine, citing fake brake pads made from grass and counterfeit cancer medication said, "Fake products kill innovation, kill the economy and now kill consumers."