UK IP Crime Unit Preliminary Report On Activities

By Maëli Astruc for Intellectual Property Watch

To coincide with the International IP Enforcement Summit held on 11-12 June in London, the United Kingdom (UK) Intellectual Property Crime Group produced a preliminary version of its annual report to showing actions taken by several organisations to fight counterfeiting products.

Founded in 2004 by the UK Intellectual Property Office, UK IP Crime brings together more than 20 members from private sector, enforcement agencies and government departments “who have a role in tackling IP crime in the UK,” according to the report.

Some $US 174 million in counterfeit products were seized across the globe in 2013, according to Interpol. This included a record 12.2 million pounds of fake and unlicensed medicines as part of Operation Pangea during the period the report covers, according to the Medical and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

The interim report also highlighted industry initiatives in the UK to fight counterfeit products, for example by removing online links leading to copyrights infringements materials. A total of 1,602,483 links were removed by the Publishers Association in 2013, and 72,000,000 by the British Recorded Music Industry, it said.

In another development, copyright group PRS for Music developed semi-automated search technology to locate links with musical works deemed to be infringing. Using this technology, it was able to successfully remove 73,333 files during 2013, embodying 2,339,118 infringed musical works, with 99.48 percent of the files reported resulting in a successful removal, it said.

The final report should be published by the end of the summer.