Uniting to Fight the Counterfeiters
Combating agile and innovative counterfeiters can seem like a daunting task. Maura O’Malley explores best practices and strategies with experts in online marketplaces, social media, and law enforcement.
The scale of the global counterfeiting problem is staggering. According to Corsearch, counterfeits accounted for 3.3 percent of global trade in 2023, and will grow to 5 percent—or US $1.79 trillion—by 2030. In other words, for every US $20 spent globally on products, US $1 could be spent on counterfeit goods.
Tackling counterfeiting can seem like a herculean task, with changing consumer habits coupled with counterfeiters' agility and ingenuity. Effective strategies and best practices will be shared at the session Stronger Together—How to Maximize Anticounterfeiting Impact Among Brands and Platforms on Monday, May 19 (2:45 pm–3:30 pm). The session is being presented by INTA’s Anticounterfeiting Committee.
Registrants will hear from a variety of voices, bringing together law enforcement, online marketplaces, social media, and in-house counsel to discuss emerging trends, artificial intelligence (AI), the importance of collaboration, and more.
Panelist Susanne Teixeira (Spinmaster, Canada), who heads up the IP department of children’s entertainment company Spinmaster, will highlight the shift in counterfeit activities from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce and social media, and the need for brand owners to understand and adapt to the ever-changing consumer shopping landscape.
She explains that people are shopping not just in online marketplaces, but also through apps and social media. Many more platforms are opening shopping experiences to consumers.
“As a result, counterfeiters or bad actors now have more opportunities to reach consumers faster and across a wider range of platforms,” notes Ms. Teixeira, adding that brand owners should endeavor to fully understand and be on top of the ever-changing landscape, and should also network and make contacts with other players in the space.
Drawing on her two decades of experience in this space, Ms. Teixeira has been able to develop her network to cope with changing consumer behavior. She notes that, “It might be scary to look to engage or share information about your IP assets,” but as a brand owner, she adds, it's essential to collaborate with partners who can help prevent counterfeits from entering the marketplace.
“Enforcing IP rights and fighting counterfeits requires a united effort across the public and private sector. From brands and retailers to law enforcement and trademark offices, each player brings unique expertise and capabilities.” - Kebharu Smith | Amazon Inc. (USA)
Collaboration is Key
Collaboration is also emphasized by session panelist Kebharu Smith, (Amazon Inc., USA). He says, “Enforcing IP rights and fighting counterfeits requires a united effort across the public and private sector. From brands and retailers to law enforcement and trademark offices, each player brings unique expertise and capabilities.”
Mr. Smith talks about Project Zero, Amazon’s free-to-enroll Brand Registry, which provides automated protections for brands using machine learning and brand-provided data. Using AI and brand information, the self-service tool automatically detects and removes counterfeit listings.
Amazon also has an IP Accelerator, which helps small businesses efficiently obtain trademark protection. He notes that “brands are the experts when it comes to their own intellectual property—they best understand their products, trademarks, and the signals that indicate potential infringement.”
Mr. Smith notes that when brands report potential infringement to Amazon through systems like their Brand Registry's Report a Violation tool, the “machine learning algorithms use this information to learn and improve protections.”
Ms. Teixeira says that combating counterfeiting requires “a full gamut of collaboration. So, it's not just one collaboration with one marketplace. It is a collaboration with customs. It is a collaboration with various marketplaces. It is a collaboration with different territories and local regional police. There's a massive undertaking that goes into building a network, and establishing a good network that you can rely upon.”
This can be more difficult to achieve for smaller brands, she concedes. But there are important steps smaller brands can take like registering their IP rights with the IP offices.
She also recommends fostering a relationship with customs. Referring to US Customs, she notes: “You can put things on their radar, and then conduct training sessions as a brand owner, you don't necessarily have to hire a firm.” This approach helps them recognize and understand your intellectual property assets.
As producers of toys sold globally, health and safety are of vital importance to her company. Ms. Teixeira says, “A lot of the time, counterfeiters are not doing the same checks, and they do not have the same due diligence. And so, it's extremely important for us to ensure the safety of our consumers.”
She notes that when they raise legitimate safety concerns with platforms, they're “able to strategically approach the situation, and rectify the issue at hand.”
“Individualized purchases and shipments are a nightmare for all customs authorities. It is therefore [necessary] to engage with e-commerce platforms and courier services to look for cooperation opportunities.”
- Jake Feuggelen | European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) (Belgium)
Public - Private Collaboration
Session moderator Anthonia Ghalamkarizadeh (Hogan Lovells, Germany) points out that Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit, which brings civil and criminal proceedings against counterfeiters jointly with IP rights owners across the world is a “particularly meaningful and successful program that shows the power of anticounterfeiting where stakeholders join forces.”
Mr. Smith says that since launching in 2020, Amazon's Counterfeit Crimes Unit has pursued more than 24,000 bad actors through litigation and criminal referrals to law enforcement in the China, the EU, UK, and the US.
Panelist Jake Feuggelen from the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF, Belgium), explains the Office’s role in coordinating efforts among various EU customs agencies to enforce IP infringement measures.
He says that the idea behind this approach is that it is easier and more effective to stop counterfeits at the border when they arrive from outside the European Union. Within this remit, he regularly organizes joint customs operations that might also involve non-EU customs agencies and other law enforcement agencies active in this domain.
Mr. Feuggelen adds, “I believe that strong and efficient interaction between the private sector (rightsholders); OLAF, as an operational coordinating body and bridge function; and with national law enforcement agencies, a better result is ultimately reached.”
“More often than not,” he continues, “this enhanced cooperation provides better intelligence and information, which is needed to go beyond the mere seizures and to investigate and prosecute the organizers of the illicit trade.”
New Trends
Mr. Smith says, “Counterfeiters are investing serious resources to set up enterprises on a scale we've never seen before. These aren't small-time ventures—they're complex manufacturing networks.”
Giving some examples of new avenues used by counterfeiters, Ms. Teixeira mentions social media, apps, and WeChat. She stresses that it is important to recognize who is offering the products on the online marketplaces and to try to identify the same infringer or same items across multiple platforms.
Mr. Feuggelen mentions the scourge of small parcels. “Individualized purchases and shipments are a nightmare for all customs authorities. It is therefore [necessary] to engage with e-commerce platforms and courier services to look for cooperation opportunities.”
“I think we need to keep a very close eye on the developments of how AI can be used further by potentially bad actors.” - Susanne Teixeira | Spinmaster (Canada)
Artificial Intelligence
AI is a promising and impactful technology for developing robust content moderation and monitoring tools—both to proactively detect counterfeits, and to deploy powerful filters to ensure that bad actors cannot re-upload infringing content that has already been taken down, says Ms. Ghalamkarizadeh.
Ms. Teixeira points out that Amazon currently uses AI to conduct image scraping to identify fakes. But while AI is being used in a positive manner, she says, “I think we need to keep a very close eye on the developments of how AI can be used further by potentially bad actors.”
Mr. Smith adds that computer vision and large language models can now detect subtle variations in product images, helping identify potential IP infringement attempts, such as manipulated logos, shapes, and patterns.
These technological advances complement the “irreplaceable expertise” of brand owners, who best understand their IP and its unique characteristics.
Spotlight on the Sources
Mr. Feuggelen says that China and Türkiye remain by far the most important origin countries when it comes to counterfeit production. But there is also an increasing number of counterfeits coming from Eastern Europe and, notably, Ukraine, for counterfeit crop protection products.
He says that they have also noticed the abuse of e-commerce platforms and express courier services to circumvent customs controls.
Ms. Teixeira adds that, from a manufacturing viewpoint, her company finds that most factories are based in Asia.
Discussing key messages she hopes registrants will come away with from the session, Ms. Ghalamkarizadeh says that, “Anticounterfeiting efforts can reach their maximum potential when stakeholders from rightsholders to intermediaries and law enforcement join forces, share information, and combat anticounterfeiting trends and infringers together.”
Ms. Teixeira adds that people need to understand “it's not a one size fits all, and that there are a variety of strategies that can be deployed in order to combat the ever-changing landscape of counterfeit products.”
