Dangerous Fakes Enrich Dangerous Criminals

by Mark Esper

Earlier today, the RAND Corporation released a report documenting the startling nexus between organized crime and intellectual property theft.  In "Film Piracy and its Connection to Organized Crime and Terrorism," the report's authors provide compelling evidence of "a broad… and continuing connection between film piracy and organized crime."

While this report focuses primarily on IP theft in the film industry, in reality, many industries are targeted by organized crime.  Because these criminal networks' aim is to make money, they work across industries.  While one day they are pirating DVDs, the next day they may be mixing counterfeit medicines that can harm unwitting patients or producing electronic goods that can catch fire.  It seems no one is safe.   

Last year, we saw this connection in action when National Geographic premiered the Chamber-sponsored documentary Illicit: The Dark Trade, which illustrated the economic and security impact of IP theft.

At a time when Americans are losing their jobs in droves, government needs to aggressively protect and enforce intellectual property rights at home and abroad.  Legitimate businesses and workers that rely on their protected ideas for their livelihood are losing out to criminal organizations that don't play by the rules, putting our economy and consumers at risk while jobs are being lost.

RAND's new report provides alarming ammunition to the cause of protecting inventors' rights and efforts to ensure that the products consumers ultimately use are authentic, safe and effective.

Next week, America's creative community will have another opportunity to learn more details about the Obama Administration's plan to protect intellectual property rights when the Senate Finance Committee holds U.S. Trade Representative nominee Ron Kirk's confirmation hearing.

As President Obama's IP team starts taking shape, there are several tools within the government's reach to protect IP rights and combat criminal networks like the ones documented in RAND's report.  These measures include:

• Fully funding and implementing the PRO-IP Act (PL 110-403), which toughens civil and criminal laws against counterfeiting and piracy, provides enhanced IP enforcement and prosecutorial resources, and improves IP coordination within the executive branch.
• Supporting the introduction, passage and enactment of a Customs and Border Protection Reauthorization bill to better address trafficking in illicit goods.
• Supporting the Baucus-Hatch legislative improvements to the USTR's Special 301 process to help deal with other countries that fail to live up to their international IP obligations.
• Concluding negotiations for a substantive and enforceable Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with major trading partners.
• Pursuing trade agreements with strong global IP protections.
• Expanding U.S. leadership on IP protection within the G8, the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America, and other bilateral and multilateral frameworks.
• Building coalitions in favor of strong IP protections at international organizations, such as the World Health Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, and U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
• Engaging Beijing to improve China's IP legal and regulatory regimes through the implementation of new patent, trademark and copyright laws.
• Pursuing reforms on data exclusivity, incremental innovation and optical discs legislation in India.
• Working towards improved retail and copyright enforcement in Russia, as well as the successful implementation of IP reform through Part IV of its Civil Code. 

By advancing these measures, the Chamber's Global IP Center believes the federal government will be better-equipped to shut down the criminal networks the RAND report has so well documented.