Organisation’s work outlined in IP Crime and Enforcement Report 2016/2017.
TRAP – the worldwide collective of rights holders and publishers which aims to protect the public from purchasing counterfeit products – has had its work recognised in the latest official IP Crime and Enforcement Report 2016/2017.
The body – which includes licensees such as Bravado, Danilo, Pyramid and GB eye, as well as Global Merchandising Services and Live Nation – has been highlighted alongside other groups including Alliance for Intellectual Property, ACG, ACID, BPI, FACT and Nominet among others.
The report outlined some of the activity that TRAP has been involved with over the past year, highlighting that 287,363 UK Marketplace Offers had been reported for counterfeit merchandise since June 2016.
In addition, 11,391 Print on Demand Facebook campaigns had been closed in the last 12 months.
In the last year, TRAP has seen the major western online marketplaces competing for market share with Alibaba, resulting in an influx of South East Asian sellers into the UK marketplace – increasing the visibility and availability of cheap counterfeit merchandise, affecting price, quality and product reviews negatively.
UK online retailers are suffering, resulting in the closure of some businesses and redundancy of staff.
Facebook sellers are also becoming a notable problem. TRAP receives weekly complaints direct from artists and producers regarding counterfeit product being offered via Facebook campaigns, with the adverts often appearing on the artist’s Facebook feeds, enabling sellers to command a higher market price per item, than those on traditional platforms with less exposure.
During the period the report covers, TRAP had carried out raids on 36 retail outlets, 37 markets, 22 wholesalers, 10 screen printers and 29 eBay sellers, with 203,468 infringing items seized.
Martin Ochs, partner at IP law firm Hamlins LLP said: “Unofficial products which infringe intellectual property rights deprive artists of important creative control and gives the fan an inferior product.
“Hamlins LLP have been advising TRAP for several years in its fight to tackle this ever increasing problem. Acting collectively, rights holders, manufacturers and distributors are able to combine resources to take legal action against unlawful infringers.
“This action, together with the assistance of law enforcement agencies to prosecute offenders, has seen a positive influence which will only continue to increase as TRAP continues its efforts.”
You can read the full annual IP crime and enforcement report 2016 to 2017 by clicking on this link.
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