Counterfeiting - the tip of a criminal iceberg!

I was fortunate enough to attend the International Trade Mark Association meeting at the Amazon Building in London on Wednesday 12th April.

The subject was intellectual property enforcement and representatives from brands, platforms (such as Amazon and Ebay) and from the enforcement agencies themselves were all present. Much in the way of best practice was shared and I thought it would be of interest to readers if I penned a short summary of the proceedings.

One thing which was repeated by many of the parties is that counterfeiting is a polycriminal practice, which is to say that it rarely exists in isolation and is often one activity undertaken by a criminal organisation which may also practice drug-dealing, money laundering, arms dealing, identity fraud and other offences. The manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods is apparently the most profitable of all of the above, and is the least risky to the criminal, which is to say that it carries the least onerous penalties if the practitioner is caught.

We were informed that counterfeiting is worth £464 Billion annually, which is equivalent to 2% of world trade. This abstraction ought to be thought cost in terms of jobs in the mainstream economy. Piracy is a blight on the creative industries in which many younger people, who may themselves be attracted to counterfeit goods, aspire to work in.

In addition, it ought to be appreciated that all sorts of goods may be faked – a fake dose of COVID vaccine or ineffective face mask, or fake make-up which leaves the user with a chemically burnt face has a far more visceral effect than the apparently victimless crime of music or film piracy.

Readers tempted to buy a fake watch from a website risk not only not receiving goods, but exposing themselves to further monetary fraud, identity theft and having malware put on their computers – again this idea that the counterfeit good acted as a sort of frontispiece for other criminal acts was stressed. 

Both Amazon and Ebay offer increasingly sophisticated tools for catching IP infringers, with Amazon alone having a worldwide team of 15000 in its brand enforcement department. A member of the audience was moved to comment on the very dramatic thawing of relations between brand-holders and the platforms – and indeed the spirit of collaboration was abundant at the meeting. 

There was talk of sharing information to more effectively catch criminals and much in the way of encouraging data showing the reduction in the number of bad actors on such platforms. The message from them, and from legal enforcement agencies such as PIPCU (Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit) was that in order to enforce rights, they had to be registered in the first place and this of course is where Intellectual Property Lawyers such as Birkett Long come in.

Our trade mark attorneys can help you erect your defences against piracy before you need them and can help you in enforcing them in the event that you are a victim of piracy, by showing you what to do, to whom you should talk and the sort of information that you might need to collect in order to be successful in obtaining the support of authorities.

We have a great deal of experience in enforcing Intellectual Property Rights in Courts and Tribunals, a 100% success rate in domain name disputes and experience of the criminal aspects of IP law. If you are in trouble, we may be able to help you, but it is better to reach out early, if you can!

Jonathan Perlmutter

Head of Intellectual Property.

01206 217600