World Anti-counterfeiting day

World Anti-Counterfeiting Day seeks to highlight the serious threat posed by Intellectual Property Crime (IPC). Counterfeiting and piracy of trade marked and copyrighted products and services damages legitimate businesses and puts consumers at risk.

The global intellectual property (IP) crime market has been estimated as worth in excess of US$ 200 billion per year. Criminals are targeting a wide range of products including designer clothing, music and films, luxury and electrical goods, toys, alcohol and cigarettes. For example the cost to UK taxpayers of counterfeit cigarettes alone was £2.9billion in 2006.

Since the creation of the UK IP Crime Strategy in 2004, there has been a rise in the number of successful prosecutions from 600 to over 1000 prosecutions a year.

Ian Fletcher Chief Executive UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) said,

"The UK-IPO is committed to ensuring the value of creativity and innovation is maximised to the benefit of the UK. IP Crime is a serious threat to the well being of the UK’s economy. A multi-facetted and collaborated approach between industry, enforcement agencies and Government is vital to combat this threat. Many initiatives both new and on-going have assisted and will continue to assist in the prevention of IP Crime within the UK."

Editor notes

• The IP Crime Report (2.11Mb) is published by the IP Crime Group. The Group was formed in 2004 following a recommendation in the Innovation Report 2003 by the UK-IPO and is a collaboration between Government, enforcement agencies and industry
• The recent Creative Britain New Talents for the New Economy (hyperlink to report) mapped out the Government’s intent to promote national IP resources
• US$200 billion is based on data from estimated counterfeit and pirated goods seized from customs across national boards in OECD countries
• £2.9 billion are HMRC figures

Date of release: 17 June 2008