Law enforcers and Industry are reaping the rewards of improved knowledge of IP crime and offenders thanks to the ‘Intelligence Hub’ created by the Intellectual Property Office to support a more targeted approach to operations, according to the IPO.
In a July speech at the British recorded music industry body the BPI annual meeting, the associaton’s chief exec Geoff taylor said the BPI’s number one objective in the last year ‘has remained tackling online piracy’. As he made plain, that includes online work against file sharers; and (literally?!) ‘putting doors through’ in raids on organised criminals who are copying music onto discs by the million.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Group (ACG) has its autumn conference on Wednesday and Thursday October 14 and 15 at the Radisson SAS Portman Hotel, west London. Visit http://www.a-cg.org<br><br>Watches that stop, hair stylers that burn your hair, cigarettes made of sawdust and designer handbags in fact made of cheap materials that break – counterfeits and pirated goods are anything but victimless crimes, for retailers and the buyers of those knock-off goods. <br><br>The Intellectual Property Crime Group 2008/2009 IP Crime Report (1.83Mb), published by David Lammy, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, highlighted intelligence sharing as being one of the most effective and sustainable ways of tackling IP crime.<br><br>To facilitate a coordinated approach and the sharing of information to help address IP Crime, the Intellectual Property Office launched an IP crime strategy in 2004. This included the establishment of the IP Crime Group and outlined the development of an Intellectual Property Office led intelligence hub, working with those agencies leading the way in targeting those involved with IP crime.<br><br>The hub has received more than 2,000 intelligence reports since the beginning of 2009; a 120pc increase in the same period for 2008. This vast increase is attributed to the renewed partnerships that have been made with enforcement agencies such as the police and trading standards.<br><br>Commenting on the report <br><br>Mr Lammy said:“This report makes it makes clear that IP crime affects us all. It attacks the prosperity of our businesses and communities. It is economic and cultural vandalism that undermines our creators’ and innovators’ efforts.<br><br>“The UK is not alone in the fight. IP crime is a serious global issue. The OECD estimates that the global trade in counterfeit and pirated products seized across national borders is worth around US$200 billion – higher than the GDP of 150 countries. This figure continues to increase and doesn’t even include goods produced and consumed domestically.”<br><br>The Intellectual Property Office has also recently been awarded competent authority status which enables increased collaboration and intelligence sharing with enforcement agencies in different countries via Europol which will enable IP crime to be tackled further.<br><br>However, although progress has been made in combating some of the serious issues of IP Crime, it still poses a serious threat to businesses and consumers. The Rogers Review estimated that criminal gain from IP crime in the UK was £1.3 billion in 2006 with £900 million of this flowing to organised crime. Many believe that today the actual figure is far higher.<br><br>Giles York, Deputy Chief Constable of Sussex Police and Chair of the IP Crime Group said: “This latest report clearly shows that IP crime represents a significant threat to UK businesses and consumers. I am seeing more and more cases where organised criminals are becoming involved in IP crime where the profits fund other serious criminal activities.<br><br>“An Inter ministerial Group on IP Enforcement has also been created by Minister David Lammy to target public awareness and make enforcement more effective; all of this will complement the IP Crime Group’s innovative work.<br><br>“Our IP Crime Group contains a broad range of experience and expertise, and the value of harnessing this into collaborative action cannot be overstated. It is up to all of us to sustain and build on this action, particularly during times of economic uncertainty, to ensure the UK is closed for the business of IP crime.”<br><br>The IP Crime Group, which was created in 2004 as a result of the IP Crime Strategy, brought together all the key players in order to set priorities and coordinate activity. The current Group brings together representatives from government, industry and enforcement agencies. The aim of the IP Crime group is to discuss cross-cutting policy issues, raise awareness of IP crime and identify and disseminate best practice.<br><br>The Intellectual Property Office is within the Department for Business Innovation, and Skills and responsible for the national framework of Intellectual Property rights, comprising patents, designs, trade marks and copyright.<br><br>Its role is to help manage an IP system that encourages innovation and creativity, balances the needs of consumers and users, promotes strong and competitive markets and is the foundation of the knowledge based economy.<br><br>It operates in a national and an international environment and its work is governed by national and international law, including various international treaties relating to IP to which the United Kingdom is a party.<br><br>The IP Crime Group<br><br>Created in 2004 as a result of the IP Crime Strategy, it brought together all the key players in order to set priorities and coordinate activity. The current Group brings together representatives from government, industry and enforcement agencies. The aim of the IP Crime group is to discuss cross-cutting policy issues, raise awareness of IP crime and identify and disseminate best practice. Further information is available on the Intellectual Property Office website.<br><br>According to figures from UK Trade & Investment in 2007 the creative industries generated 8.2% of the UK GDP accounting for over 1.9 million jobs – with the brand industries estimating around £15.8 billion in investments per year in the UK, supporting one million jobs. The value these industries add to the UK economy must therefore be protected, the IPO argues.<br><br>In the report that you can download from the IPO website, Giles York says in a preface: "I am seeing more and more cases where serious organised criminals are becoming involved in IP crime where the profi ts fund other serious criminal activities. As the police lead on IP crime, I have been raising this issue with police forces throughout the UK …’ <br><br>The document does spell out the problems to fighting such crime – for one thing, its very name that may seem intellectual and off-putting. As Giles York wrote: "IP crime by itself will never be a top policing priority." <br><br>Briefly, counterfeiting may be of clothes or pharmaceuticals – while piracy is of content such as music, film, sports events, or computer games and software. <br><br>Ways to stop it may be to keep an eye on the supply chain or at the consumer end – such as market stalls and car boot sales. However the crime is done digitally too – as the document says, besides the traditional ‘real’ markets for illegal goods, ‘a fast-growing market is the internet. Increasingly, online methods of distribution for fake goods are being used, in two different ways. Business to business trade is used for the wholesale of illegal goods, in bulk, where criminals trade internationally. Some IP criminals sell directly to the consumer, including via auction sites such as eBay.'<br><br>The risks to the legitimate economy are two-fold; if a retailer inadvertently sells a counterfeit product – tobacco products, electrical goods, medicines – that may well be of poor quality, such as dangerous toys or poisonous vodka, the customer may be angry and the brand will lose reputation. The true brand will lose revenue – such as a football club whose name is put without permission on scarves and badges sold outside football grounds. Hence work bypharma firm Pfizer for instance, on the website www.realdanger.co.uk. <br><br>Or: ‘some rights holders have found ways of building deterrents into their products. Manufacturers have found many ways of giving their products unique identifiers, such as individual codes and invisible ‘covert’ markings, so that illegal copies are easier to identify and/or genuine products are much harder to copy.'<br><br>The document also gives the example of the Clothes Show at the NEC: there has been for some years ‘close liaison’ between the local, Solihull trading standards manager and event organisers Haymarket Media Group in case it’s, in the document’s words, ‘a marketplace for counterfeit and pirated goods’.<br><br>The on-site security team is part of the picture if it was necessary to ensure any seizure or surrender of goods from a stand is done in the safest way for all, and especially the visitors. "Any seizure or surrender needs to take place without creating a sideshow for the visitors or too much disruption to the flow of people, especially if the stand is on a thoroughfare near a theatre that is about to empty. To date no strong or aggressive protest has ever been made by an exhibitor but the Security Team is on hand to deal with this if necessary."
