New Business Toolkit Launched in Fight against Counterfeiting & Piracy
A new best practice toolkit which gives businesses practical advice on how they can better protect themselves from the dangers of fake goods entering business supply chains was launched today by David Lammy, Minister for Intellectual Property.
Developments in technology and communications have led to increases in intellectual property (IP) crime (counterfeiting and piracy) over the past decade, around $200billion per year, creating one of the biggest problems for businesses of all kinds around the world.
The Supply Chain Toolkit has been produced by the Intellectual Property Office's IP Crime Group. It includes a step by step approach on what action should be taken if counterfeits are found within the supply chain and guidance on how to strengthen and protect IP assets.
David Lammy, Minister of State for Intellectual Property said: "IP crime is a serious global issue with tens of billions of pounds worth of counterfeit goods seized across national borders each year.
"With recent research finding that nearly a quarter of all small and medium-sized enterprises were affected by counterfeiting, this toolkit offers practical advice to businesses to help them better protect themselves from IP crime, especially during these already challenging times."
IP crime has spread from small industries producing poor-quality, counterfeit fashion accessories and goods to massive manufacturing plants that can produce cheap copies of everything from electrical appliances to medicines. Often these cheap copies can be very dangerous.
The Rogers Review of National enforcement priorities for local authority regulatory services (2007) stated that intellectual property crime is worth £1.3 billion in the UK with £900 million of this flowing to organised crime.
Many businesses rely on goods received through supply chains, often from many different suppliers, and are therefore at risk from counterfeiting and piracy unless effective systems and agreements are put in place to tackle this problem.
The toolkit can be viewed on the Intellectual Property web site.