Washington
-- International cooperation is required to deal with intellectual
property piracy as the trade in counterfeit goods is growing,
U.S. government officials say.
The influx of counterfeit goods into the
United States is a growing problem, said Daniel Baldwin,
an assistant commissioner at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
According to the Commerce Department, seizures
of fake and counterfeit goods at U.S. borders have doubled
since 2001. Baldwin told a business group that his agency
has made 14,500 seizures so far in 2006, which is 80 percent
more than its 2005 total.
The United States alone cannot effectively
address this problem because it is not feasible to inspect
each of the 25 million shipments of goods arriving in the
United States each year, he said.
Baldwin said the "first and foremost”
component of the U.S. approach to combating intellectual
property piracy is to work with international trade partners
such as the members of the Group of Eight countries, the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the European
Union (EU).
Baldwin and another official, Stephen Jacobs,
deputy assistant secretary of commerce, spoke November 13
at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest U.S. business
lobbying group.
Jacobs said the administration has set a
as a key goal "reaching out to our international trading
partners to try and develop a coalition of countries who
are willing to target the practices of organized piracy."
At the 2005 U.S.-EU Summit, both sides agreed
to work together to fight global piracy and counterfeiting,
and subsequently have begun implementing an action plan
to promote strong and effective border enforcement of intellectual
property rights (IPR) through customs cooperation. In addition,
at their second informal economic ministerial meeting in
Washington November 9, EU and U.S. officials announced they
would also focus on helping China, India and the rest of
the developing world fight counterfeiting and piracy. (See
related
article.)
"This is not a U.S. problem -- it is
a problem around the world," Baldwin said, adding that
IPR-infringing goods hurt businesses and consumers everywhere.
Jacobs said that the issue is not “just
a matter of overpaid Hollywood stars and singers.”
According to Interpol, World Customs Organization
and International Chamber of Commerce estimates, roughly
7 percent to 8 percent of world trade every year is in counterfeit
goods.
For more information on U.S. policy, see
Protecting
Intellectual Property Rights.
More
information also is available on a U.S. Department of
Commerce Web site on targeting organized piracy.
Nadine Siak
USINFO Staff Writer
###
