In an effort to fight what President Barak Obama’s office has described as a counterfeit pandemic, they have given full support to the 2010 Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement being coordinated by the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC). This effort brings together the federal departments of
- Agriculture (USDA);
- Commerce (DOC);
- Health and Human Services (HHS);
- Homeland Security (DHS);
- Justice (DOJ);
- State (DOS);
- the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR); and
- the U.S. Copyright Office.
The sharing of these departments’ resources and programs means a concerted effort to combat the counterfeit issues that have been witnessed with increasing frequency. Intellectual property (IP) theft is a problem that is hurting several industries such as music, retail, pharmaceutical, and electronics to name a few.
IPEC’s plan outlines 33 enforcement strategies divided into 6 separate categories:
1. to lead by example;
2. to increase transparency;
3. to ensure efficiency and coordination;
4. to enforce IP rights internationally;
5. to secure supply chain; and
6. to improve data and information collection
How does this affect the broker and distributor? The US crack down on the import of counterfeits will place greater emphasis on everyone doing their part to remove counterfeits from the supply chain. To this end, a main point to take note of is the ‘Penalty Relief for Voluntary Disclosure’.
“In cases where importers or other parties discover that they have acquired counterfeit or pirated prod-
ucts without their knowledge, there is no existing process by which the importers can voluntarily disclose violations to CBP without being subject to seizures and other enforcement actions In order to discover counterfeit goods, encourage voluntary disclosure and strengthen cooperation between industry and enforcement entities, the U S Government will take action to allow importers and others involved in the importation of infringing goods to receive relief from civil enforcement action as appropriate when they voluntarily disclose the violation to CBP prior to the beginning of an investigation. If a valid disclosure is made, the infringing goods in the disclosing party’s possession or control would be destroyed under CBP’s supervision and the disclosing party would bear the costs of destruction. ”
The CBP’s web site will help to locate your company’s nearest port of entry to report cases of counterfeit and pirated products.
In addition, the United States’ involvement in the final draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) gives the United States another tool to combat the counterfeiters on an international level. The final draft has been agreed upon by Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Republic of
Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United
Mexican States, the United States, and the European Union.
