Anti-counterfeiting 2015 A Global Guide

  • 30 January 2017
Anti-counterfeiting 2015 A Global Guide

The paper looks at intermediaries operating both in the physical world and online that are particularly susceptible to counterfeiting and piracy.

Brand owners and rights holders rely on intermediaries at virtually every step in the process of producing, distributing, marketing and selling their products and works. Intermediaries play a critical role in providing services within the supply chain, connecting producers and consumers and opening new market opportunities. Most intermediaries are reliable and responsible business partners which do not want to do business with criminals or facilitate the illegal practices of counterfeiting and piracy.

Global markets and extended supply chains make it much harder to know, manage and control every intermediary and see their every transaction. This is complicated by the explosion in internet use, which now connects more than 3 billion people and their devices through a myriad of connected services and platforms. A number of supply chain vulnerabilities have become more evident under these pressures and criminal agents have seized opportunities to exploit them. Identifying and pursing counterfeit and pirate producers and suppliers is now a multi-jurisdictional and diffuse task, with supply chains that can more easily re-establish themselves after action is taken.

The International Chamber of Commerce’s Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy has released a major new paper, Roles and Responsibilities of Intermediaries – Fighting Counterfeiting and Piracy in the Global Supply Chain looking at a range of important intermediaries to show how criminal networks and other infringers routinely use and abuse intermediary services to facilitate the global trade in illicit merchandise and digital products, documents the steps being taken to prevent this infiltration and suggests further steps to curb these abuses.

The paper looks at intermediaries operating both in the physical world and online that are particularly susceptible to counterfeiting and piracy:

With knowledge comes understanding

Documenting the ways in which intermediary services are abused is an important first step. Awareness is critical to help responsible intermediaries to deal more effectively with vulnerabilities in their operations, and to curb the activities of intermediaries that knowingly propagate and/or permit IP infringement through their services.