Neville-Rolfe: Better enforcement tackling the rise in online intellectual property crime

Consumers must beware of illegal traders who are increasingly using the internet to sell counterfeit and pirated goods, according to the Intellectual Property (IP) Crime report published by Baroness Neville-Rolfe.

The report, written by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) on behalf of the UK IP Crime Group sets out key developments in IP crime and new enforcement activity tackling issues including:

• the creation and impact of a specialist police unit, The City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) which has already investigated more than £28 million worth of IP crime and suspended more than 2,000 co.uk domain names in its first year
• targeted investigations by Trading Standards
• greater intervention by industry to highlight breaches and defend their own intellectual property.

The progress made in tackling IP crime has been the result of greater collaboration between government, enforcement agencies and industry. The impact of PIPCU, the first unit of its kind in the world, has been mirrored by increasing levels of industry intervention including:

• 72 million instances of infringing digital material removed by the UK Music industry (BPI)
• more than 1.6 million links to books which infringe copyright taken down by the Publishers Association (PA), a 4-fold increase on the previous year

Intellectual Property Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said: “Criminals who steal work and ideas, or make and sell fake merchandise pose a real threat to jobs in the UK, and deceive consumers who want to know the goods they buy are the real thing.

“National and international efforts to fight this type of crime are yielding real results, through new specialist resources, greater collaboration and intervention by industry. It is vital that we keep fighting to bring intellectual property criminals to justice and make sure that consumers are alert to the risks.”

The report shows how the UK government, law enforcement agencies and industry bodies are collaborating to address the threat posed by IP crime. This coordinated response is an indication of the level of threat this criminal activity poses to UK businesses and consumers.

Source: Gov.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/neville-rolfe-better-enforcement-tackling-the-rise-in-online-intellectual-property-crime

Intellectual Property Crime Report: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/361045/ipcreport13.pdf