ANTICOUNTERFEITING WORKSHOP:
Combating Counterfeiting: Online and Offline

(Exclusive to in-house practitioners and government officials)

This workshop presents an opportunity for key stakeholders in the fight against counterfeiting to work together in a closed-door environment, sharing their perspectives, discussing lessons learned and best practices, and exploring ways to enhance collaboration and cooperation.

One of the biggest challenges to brand owners today is the sophistication of counterfeiters and their creativity in leveraging technological advancements, as they infiltrate legitimate business channels to grow their nefarious networks and consequently their bottom line. The return on investment for a counterfeiter is high and it is a constant struggle for brand owners and governments to effectively destroy well-funded counterfeiting rings. This workshop will explore creative solutions to a growing problem, including leveraging criminal enforcement routes, non-IP‒based legal actions, and more. 

This year’s workshop will build on the successful event in Seattle last year (“Working Together Towards Solutions”) by exploring in more details some of the key themes to come out of that event.  Attendees in Seattle considered three key questions: (1) what does “success” in the fight against online counterfeiting look like to you? (2) what are the key obstacles to success? What will make us fail and (3) what will make this work? What steps could be taken, by you and by other stakeholders, to overcome those obstacles, in the short, medium and long term?  

Three themes emerged which strongly resonant with the Anticounterfeiting Committee's current objectives: Education, Alignment and Collaboration.  The Seattle event also highlighted the need for “more progress” in dealing with issues emerging in the social media space and we will share results of a recent social media study.

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Attendees

The workshop is aimed at three key groups of stakeholders:

• Corporate in-house representatives (corporates), namely those rights holders impacted by counterfeiting;
• Intermediaries, including digital commerce service providers, namely in-house representatives from the digital commerce environment, which includes marketplaces, payment service providers, search engines, and social media platforms, as well as  Internet registries,  registrars, and logistics companies; and
• Government officials, namely government and law enforcement officials involved in the fight against online counterfeiting.

Please note that space is limited and registration is therefore on a first-come, first-served basis. In view of space limitations, we ask that no more than two representatives of an entity or organization attend this workshop.

Questions/Issues

Each group will discuss a series of common questions, including:

• Effective information sharing across borders and across key stakeholders
• Effectively stopping counterfeiters from using small parcel distribution to avoid detection
• Preventing cross-jurisdictional crimes
• Intermediary liability, including landlord, Internet provider, payment service provider, etc.
• Effective ways to follow the money to get at the heart of a counterfeiting network
• Voluntary solutions, such as memoranda of understanding

While the focus will be on collaboration, groups will also examine tensions between different perspectives and explore common solutions.

During our discussions today, we will further explore three themes which emerged from last year’s discussions in Seattle:

• Education – exploring ideal outcomes and impact; exploring what each stakeholder group needs to do differently 
• Alignment - winning the battle internally, sharing experiences of overcoming obstacles/pain points, developing a common language internally, framing objectives, getting support within an organization, demonstrating return on investment 
• Collaboration – Best practice examples

We hope that attendees will share examples of particularly helpful practices/processes that they are utilizing in the fight against online counterfeiting.