Mid-Year Report On Global IP Theft Published

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

26 October 2006

According to a new report published by Gieschen Consultancy this week, intellectual property theft cost companies almost $700 million internationally in the first half of this year.

The 2006 Mid-Year Counterfeit & Piracy Intelligence Report revealed that IP theft activity was up an estimated 7% on the same period last year, with around 760 instances of copyright and trademark theft occurring in the first half of the year.

The report went on to reveal that the United States and the United Kingdom are the most active in publicly battling counterfeiters and pirates and educating their populations through the reporting of raids, seizures and investigations. As such, statistics for these countries are notably higher than the global average. Other countries, such as China and Russia, tend to report less information to the public.

The top 5 of the 69 countries surveyed enforcing intellectual property violations were:

1. USA, 205 incidents, $51.7 Million seizures & losses
2. UK, 116 incidents, $31.1 Million
3. India, 87 incidents, $2.5 Million
4. Malaysia, 52 incidents, $5.9 Million
5. China, 43 incidents, $5.3 Million

Meanwhile, the top 5 (of 392) brands counterfeited were found to be:

1. Louis Vuitton, 5.2% of incidents.
2. Nike, 4.9%.
3. Microsoft, 4.7%.
4. Gucci, 3.8%.
5. Prada, 2.5%.

The survey suggested that the five most counterfeited products were: films, music, software, medicine, and handbags.

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