E-commerce Seen as Growing IPR Enforcement Challenge, ICE Official Tells Congress
The combined growth of e-commerce and small shipments is expected to be a major issue for intellectual property rights enforcement in coming years, ICE Intellectual Property Rights Center Acting Assistant Director Matthew Allen said in testimony provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee (here). The agency foresees the "e-commerce direct-to-consumer business model that utilize[s] express mail and postal small shipments to become increasingly challenging in the years ahead" because "there are numerous enforcement weaknesses in these environments that counterfeiters exploit,” Allen told lawmakers. Three-dimensional printing and virtual currency will also present more IP problems going forward, he said. “ICE expects that intellectual property criminals will continue to use these technologies, and others we have not yet seen, in furtherance of their criminal activity,” Allen said.
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The IPR Center is developing a mobile app to accept public reports of suspected IP theft and photographs of questionable goods, he said. The app will send out “news alerts” of the dangers of counterfeits to increase public awareness, Allen said. Creation of the app will follow the IPR Center’s 2016 rollout of its “Report IP Theft” button and lead intake form on its website, which has improved IP infringement information collection and enhanced the ability of ICE to de-conflict the information with government partners, Allen said. The form allows industry to provide CBP-specific information, and acts as a “one-stop” for the public, industry and law enforcement to report information to the Department of Homeland Security, Allen said.
Allen also highlighted organized seizure efforts for counterfeit airbags, illicit medicine, and, in the newest IPR Center initiative, counterfeit consumer electronics and technology, which combines the expertise of ICE, CBP, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and others. He also touted the success of “Project Trans-Atlantic,” in which the IPR Center partnered with Europol, INTERPOL and industry to seize domain names of websites selling counterfeit and pirated goods. In an iteration of the program -- Trans-Atlantic VI -- that ended Nov. 30, 2016, international law enforcement agencies seized more than 4,500 domain names, and industry partners seized or canceled 15,000 websites and 48,000 links on e-commerce platforms through civil or administrative actions, Allen said.