This seems to be referencing Regulation (EU) 654/2014, an EU law which allows the EU to unilaterally enact countermeasures against countries that break the WTO's rules.
The countermeasures listed in article 5 are:
- Imposing tarriffs and customs duties
- Trade restrictions/quotas
- Cancelling contracts between the EU and the target country
- Cancelling the target country's intellectual property rights (e.g. patents/copyrights)
- Banning public procurement from the target country
- Implementing price penalties for public procurement from the target country
The law was amended in Regulation (EU) 2021/167 in response to the Trump (and now Biden) administrations blocking the appointment of judges to the WTO and using a loophole to kill the WTO's enforcement mechanism.
More context from the EU parliament:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/652021/EPRS_BRI(2020)652021_EN.pdf
The fact that the EU can just suspend American patents and copyrights is pretty insane. Could be some huge benefits for European companies and movie pirates.
