ENFORCEMENT

Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement
Statement on the Executive Order Entitled
“Imposing Additional Sanctions with Respect to North Korea”
“We take seriously North Korea’s attack that aimed to create destructive financial effects on a U.S. company and
to threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of restricting their right to free expression.”
The White House (Jan. 2, 2015)
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bags and cigarettes; the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (the FARC), which reportedly found the
sale of pirated discs more profitable than the ransom
kidnappings for which it is more notorious; and across
the tribal belt of Pakistan, it is reported that Taliban
militias collect money from cigarette smugglers in
exchange for allowing counterfeit and illicit tobacco
into Afghanistan and China. 140,141
The convergence of intellectual property crime
and illicit actors is not just limited to TOC or terroristaffiliated
groups, but also extends to nation-state
actors. For example, it was widely reported that North
Korea facilitated the distribution of large volumes
of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and cigarettes as a
means to generate hard currency due to the state of
sanctions; the country was also identified as sponsoring
the crippling cyber-attacks against Sony Pictures
Entertainment in 2014—an attack that deleted files from
corporate hard drives, uploaded several unreleased
films to the Internet, and leaked sensitive personal
information regarding thousands of Sony employees. 142
When state-sponsored malicious cyber actors target
confidential business information and proprietary
works and technologies for commercial gain, they put
businesses and our national interests at risk. Similarly,
when counterfeit goods such as fake computer and
networking devices infiltrate global supply chains,
they place the reliability of our communications and
transportation networks at risk and introduce threats
and vulnerabilities that could impact national security,
while fake pharmaceuticals, electrical components,
aircraft and automobile parts and other goods
undermine public safety and other National interests. 143
At this time, interested stakeholders such as industry
associations, international organiza tions, news media,
public interest groups, and academia may not be in a
position to assess how widespread the convergence
may be between intellectual property crime and TOC
and/or terror-supporting entities. As a result, there is
an opportunity to systematically collect and make more
of this type of information available, in an appropriate
manner, in order to raise awareness and understanding
of IP crime and its links to serious crime and terror
organizations, and to facilitate and improve the
exchange of information and intelligence on IP crimes
such as counterfeiting and piracy between the public
and private sectors. See the Call for Research at the end
of Section IV of this Strategic Plan for further discussion
of related data and research needs.
The convergence between intellectual propertybased
crimes, transnational organized crime, and
terrorist financing undermines the strength and security
of democratic regimes by allowing illicit actors, for
example, to forge alliances with corrupt foreign
government officials, or otherwise destabilize political,
financial, and security institutions in fragile states.
Terrorists and insurgents increasingly turn to these
criminal networks to generate funding and acquire
logistical support. 144 Put simply, the exploitation of
intellectual property rights by criminal syndicates
appears to be posing an increasing threat to National
and global security interests.
This Strategic Plan addresses the issues discussed
above by proposing improvements to the enforcement
of domestic IP rights, cooperation with foreign
governments, use of trade tools, and voluntary privatesector
best practices (consistent with the antitrust laws),
to name a few, while being mindful that these issues
are complex and ever-changing. The following sections
seek to build on what already has been accomplished,
while continuing to look ahead. Now, more than ever, it
is important that the public, law enforcement officials,
policy makers, and all other stakeholders remain
vigilant against the mounting threats from entities
that seek to unlawfully misappropriate and exploit the
intellectual property interests belonging to others.
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