ENFORCEMENT
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Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement<br />
in IP enforcement. Still, the collective weight of research<br />
and reporting to date establishes that the global scope<br />
and costs of counterfeiting, commercial piracy, and trade<br />
secret theft are staggering, and continue to threaten<br />
substantial national interests.<br />
FIG. 1: Annual Est. Max. Value of Counterfeited and<br />
Pirated Goods ($ billions).<br />
130.5% INCREASE IN 8 YEARS<br />
$461<br />
1. Assessments of the Scale and Economic Impact<br />
of Counterfeiting and Commercial Piracy.<br />
$200<br />
$250<br />
SECTION 1<br />
One of the most comprehensive attempts to quantify the<br />
impact of counterfeiting and pirated goods from the past<br />
decade was issued in 2008, and updated in 2009, by the<br />
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development<br />
(OECD), an international organization comprised of the<br />
United States and 33 other countries from North and<br />
South America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The OECD report<br />
focused on trade involving counterfeit and pirated tangible<br />
(hard) goods. In its 2008 Report, the OECD estimated that<br />
“international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods could<br />
have accounted for up to USD 200 billion in 2005,” and in<br />
the 2009 Update, the OECD stated that “counterfeit and<br />
pirated goods in international trade could have amounted<br />
for up [to] USD 250 billion in 2007.” 13<br />
In 2016, with improved methodologies based on<br />
updated data sets and seizure statistics from various<br />
customs agencies, the OECD issued a new report<br />
revising the global estimate of international trade in<br />
counterfeit and pirated goods. The 2016 OECD Report<br />
stated that “as much as 2.5% of total world trade in<br />
2013 was in counterfeit and pirated products.” This<br />
was “a significant higher volume” than the percentage<br />
of counterfeit and pirated goods in 2005 (1.9% of world<br />
trade) and in 2007 (1.8% of world trade). And, in some<br />
countries, the percentage of counterfeit and pirated<br />
products was higher. 14<br />
More specifically, the 2016 OECD Report concluded<br />
that “[t]he best estimates of this study, based on the data<br />
provided by customs authorities, indicate that counterfeit<br />
and pirated products accounted for as much as USD 461<br />
billion in world trade in 2013.” 15<br />
A comparison of the 2008/2009 and 2016 OECD<br />
Reports demonstrates that the magnitude of the problem<br />
is large and growing. Indeed, as the 2016 OECD<br />
Report indicates, trade in counterfeits now represents a<br />
significant portion of total international trade.<br />
These figures, as significant as they are, represent<br />
only a part of a larger problem. As noted above, the<br />
2005 2007 2013<br />
Source: OECD Reports (2008. 2009, and 2016)<br />
quantitative estimates in the 2008/2009 and 2016<br />
OECD Reports do not include (1) any domesticallyproduced-and-<br />
consumed counterfeit or pirated<br />
products, and (2) digital trade in pirated products (online<br />
piracy). According to the 2008 OECD Report, if these<br />
categories were also included, “the total magnitude<br />
of counterfeiting and piracy worldwide could well be<br />
several hundred billion dollars more.” 16<br />
Another oft-cited report, published in 2011 by the<br />
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), estimated<br />
the total global economic value of counterfeit and<br />
pirated products to be as high as $650 billion in 2008,<br />
when including the categories that had been excluded<br />
in the 2008 OECD report. Furthermore, the 2011 ICC<br />
report posited that international trade may account for<br />
more than half of the estimated value of counterfeiting<br />
and piracy (between $285-$360 billion), with domestic<br />
production and consumption adding between $140-<br />
$215 billion, and digitally-pirated music, movies, and<br />
software adding another $30-$75 billion in losses to<br />
the creative and innovative industries. Looking ahead,<br />
the 2011 ICC report projected that, in 2015, the total<br />
magnitude of counterfeiting and piracy could be<br />
between $1.22 trillion and $1.77 trillion. 17<br />
Considering that the 2016 OECD report places the<br />
international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods<br />
at nearly half a trillion dollars annually (excluding all<br />
domestically-produced-and-consumed counterfeit and<br />
pirated goods, as well as online piracy), the OECD<br />
and ICC estimates together suggest that the total<br />
magnitude of counterfeiting and piracy worldwide in all<br />
forms appears to be approaching, if not surpassing, the<br />
trillion dollar mark.<br />
20