Your Voice MATTERS
Member input on IP issues is a very important and valuable tool to making your voice heard. While many legislative initiatives have deadlines for input, we welcome feedback from our members on a continued basis throughout the year. Here is an up-to-date list of issues we’re tracking and on which we’d welcome member feedback. If there isn’t a submission form available, please email us at iacc@iacc.org.
How will my input be used? / Will my company be identified in the IACC’s submission?
That is entirely up to you. As a general matter, we aggregate and anonymize all feedback provided by IACC members. Unless you specifically request otherwise, your company’s name will not be included in our comments. Instead, we will use the information provided by your company and others to provide a consensus view.
Tips on Providing Comments:
We’d appreciate as much relevant information as you are able to share concerning the countries or marketplaces where you’re experiencing the greatest difficulties enforcing your rights, and the specific challenges you’re facing. The more information we’re able to provide to the government, the more weight they’ll give our submission. Anecdotes that illustrate your concerns can be very useful, and hard data and statistics are particularly helpful to back up our subjective assessments.
SHOP SAFE Act
Summary: Amends the Lanham Act to provide for contributory liability of e-commerce platforms in connection with the sale / offer for sale of counterfeit goods by third parties; provides a shield against contributory liability where such e-commerce platforms have adopted certain enumerated best practices. The bill’s provisions are limited to sales in e-commerce of goods deemed to implicate consumers’ health and safety.
How to Submit Feedback: Please email us at iacc@iacc.org.
INFORM Consumers Act
Summary: Requires e-commerce platforms to verify the identity of high-volume sellers on an annual basis, and to conspicuously disclose to consumers information identifying the seller.
How to Submit Feedback: Please email us at iacc@iacc.org.
A Bill to Amend the Tariff Act … S. 1159
Summary: Expands and clarifies the authority of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to disclose relevant IP enforcement information to key stakeholders in the supply chain; expands the types of information that can be disclosed to such stakeholders.
How to Submit Feedback: Please email us at iacc@iacc.org.
Notorious Markets List 2023 – Click here to provide feedback
What is the Notorious Markets Review?
Each year, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) requests input from companies like yours regarding the marketplaces – both online, and brick-and-mortar –that are seen as most problematic for intellectual property rights-holders.
The feedback provided by the private sector, along with “on the ground” reports from government personnel stationed at embassies and consulates around the world serves to inform the final report from USTR regarding “hot spots” of IP crime, and in turn, to pressure foreign governments to focus their enforcement efforts where they are most needed.
Why should I participate?
In short, the Notorious Markets Review is one of the key tools used by the U.S. government in setting its priorities for IP enforcement every year. By providing feedback regarding your company’s experiences, we can ensure that the government is fully aware of the type and severity of the challenges you’re facing in protecting and enforcing your IP rights. Like your company, the government has finite resources; how those resources are used is very often a question of, “Who is the proverbial ‘squeaky wheel’?
Submission Examples:
BAD: “We see a lot of counterfeit goods sold on XYZ E-commerce Platform.”
GOOD: “Over the 12 months, we have identified x-listings for counterfeit items on XYZ E-commerce Platform. This is an increase of x-percent over the prior 12 month period. We submitted x-takedown requests to the operator of XYZ E-Commerce platform; of those requests, x-number were removed following our notification. The average time between our notification of the IP violations and the removal of the relevant listings was x-days.
Or
We believe that XYZ E-commerce Platform has insufficient policies and procedures in place to prevent counterfeiters from registering to sell on the platform because it does not require or properly validate documents to verify the identity of the seller. The platform also fails to consistently enforce its stated policy prohibiting the sale of counterfeit goods. We’ve noted high levels of recidivism because the platform has failed to suspend or revoke an individual’s selling privileges despite repeated confirmed IP violations. Where counterfeiters have been removed from the platform, we have also seen the same seller establish a new account on the platform to resume their illicit sales. Over the past year, we have identified at least x-sellers operating on the platform whose accounts had previously been terminated.
Special 301 Watchlist 2024 – Click here to provide feedback
What is the Special 301 Report?
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) is the federal agency tasked with coordinating and developing U.S. Government policy and priorities related to international trade and investment. In that role, USTR is responsible for negotiating trade agreements, ensuring fair market access for American manufacturers in foreign markets, and overseeing the compliance of our trading partners’ treaty obligations.
Each year, USTR submits a report to Congress – the Special 301 Report – highlighting the countries that present the greatest concerns with respect to IP protection and enforcement, whether due to insufficient statutory protections for trademarks, copyrights, and patents, failures to adequately enforce those rights, or other structural impediments to acquiring or exercising legal rights in those jurisdictions.
Each country included in the Special 301 Report is classified based on the overall severity of the concerns identified by USTR and the level of harm caused to rights-holders by the deficiencies in each country’s legal and enforcement regimes.
Why is it important? How does it actually impact policy / govt resources?
Congress and the Executive Branch use the Special 301 Report, and the input provided by companies like yours, to help determine how resources and policy tools can best be leveraged to resolve the problems identified in each country.
Feedback provided by rights-holders, along with “on the ground” reports from government personnel stationed at embassies and consulates around the world, helps to identify “hot spots” of IP crime, while highlighting the gaps and deficiencies in other countries’ IP regimes that lie at the root of those problems.
The Special 301 Report is one of the key tools used by the U.S. government to encourage foreign governments to adopt necessary reforms to their IP regimes, and to increase the level of IP protection and enforcement around the world.
Submission Examples:
BAD: “XYZ Country does not do enough criminal enforcement.”
GOOD: “Over the past 12 months, we have noted an x% decrease in the number of market raids / arrests / prosecutions by criminal authorities in XYZ country.
BAD: “X Country needs better laws to deter recidivism among counterfeiters.”
GOOD: “X Country’s statutes provide for a maximum term of imprisonment of 1 year for criminal trademark counterfeiting offenses, and fail to consider evidence of the offender’s sales volume or profits in calculating maximum fines. Due to a number of factors, custodial sentences are rarely imposed. Even when successfully prosecuted, violators have little disincentive against resuming their illicit activity, because there is little practical risk that they will face imprisonment, and the monetary penalties imposed are unlikely to exceed the profit derived from their illegal sales.