USA and EU united against counterfeiting
On June 20th, the Secretary of the US Department of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, the Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Enterprise and Industry, Günter Verheugen, and EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, launched an EU-USA joint program against global intellectual property piracy.
Günter Verheugen declared, 'Our industry cannot win the global race by abating prices and lowering quality. Innovation, creativity and quality are essential to develop further. When ideas, trademarks and products are stolen, pirated or counterfeited, this strategy is destined to fail. The EU and US are joining forces to put a more effective stop to product piracy'.
Between 1998 and 2004, the number of counterfeit articles seized at EU borders increased by over 1,000%, from 10 million in 1998 to over 103 million in 2004. During the 80s, 70% of the counterfeit items were luxury products. In 2004, over 4.4 million counterfeit food and drink products were seized at EU frontiers, an increase of almost 200% compared to 1998. Almost all manufacturing sectors are involved, including spare parts for the aviation and automobile industries, electrical equipment, pharmaceuticals and toys. The trade in counterfeit drugs is also increasing: in 2004 it stood at around 10% of the world trade in pharmaceuticals, but last year European border controls impounded 800,000 packs of counterfeit drugs, the majority of which were destined to the world's poorest countries.
'The protection of the intellectual property', Peter Mandelson added, 'is a key issue for the EU and US to be competitive at a global level because our value-added goods have a very high intellectual content. The battle to bring these laws into force requires a joint strategy and a certain amount of aggressiveness'.
The program envisages: closer customs cooperation including shared actions with frontier police; joint enforcement in third countries through the creation of teams of EU and US diplomats in third countries, specifically vested with data- and intelligence-sharing and joint surveillance responsibilities; much closer collaboration with the private sector, which for some time now has requested much stronger protection of intellectual property as the key to EU competitiveness.
Efforts will primarily focus on countries like China and Russia. However, the EU and the US also have considerable problems with other Asian countries, Latin America and the Middle East. The program aims at helping emergent markets and to strengthen their ability to handle intellectual property theft.
(Source: Marketpress)
