Fighting counterfeiting: Importance of enforcement of intellectual property rights

• Author: Khadijah Mohamed, Ratnaria Wahid
• Pages: 249-257

JICLT

Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology

Vol.9, No.4 (2014)

249

Fighting counterfeiting: Importance of

enforcement of intellectual property

rights

Khadijah Mohamed

School of Law

College of Law, Government and International Studies,

Universiti Utara Malaysia

khadijah@uum.edu.my

Ratnaria Wahid

School of International Studies

College of Law, Government and International Studies,

Universiti Utara Malaysia

ratnaria@uum.edu.my

Abstract. Counterfeiting ha s currently been labelled as the crime

of the t wenty-first century. It has evolved into a much more lucrative

business in very sophisticated ways. While there are many contributing

factors to the proliferation of counterfeiting in recent years, the only real

area where the government can make a difference is in setting up a

responsive legal system that includes good enforcement. The aim of this

paper is to examine the scale of counterfeiting activity derived from the

seizure data issued by th e World Customs Organization, emphasizing on

the worldwide scenario. This is followed by examination on the

motivations behind counterfeiting activity to identify gap in the existing

enforcement mechanisms so that recommendations can be made to

improve the competency of those mechanisms to address counterfeiting.

The paper then critically examin es and relates the reasons of why

effective enforcement is necessary in the fight against counterfeiting.

1. Introduction

Many dictionaries associate the general meaning of c ounterfeiting with something that

is forged, copied or imitated for the purpose of deceiving or defrauding. In Black’s Law

Dictionary, for example, “to counterfeit” is described as “to unlawfully forge, c opy or

imitate an item or to possess such an item without authorization and with intent to

deceive or defraud by presenting the item as genuine”1 while in Collins Dictionary,

1 Garner, B.A. et al. (2009). Black’ s Law Dictionary. 9th ed. USA: West Group, p.402 -403.