ENFORCEMENT

Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement
SECTION 1
the protection of existing ones, are critical to our
economic and cultural life.
Along with this remarkably positive story of
economic growth, ingenuity, and creative expression is
the growing scope of IP theft and the harms that flow
from the unlawful exploitation of IP by third parties.
This introductory section of the Joint Strategic Plan on
Intellectual Property Enforcement (“JSP” or “Strategic
Plan” or “Plan”) provides an overview of the current
landscape of IP enforcement challenges that the creative
and innovative communities—as well as policymakers
and law enforcement authorities—face. 4
This national strategy on intellectual property
enforcement—the Joint Strategic Plan—is required by
Federal statute. 5 That statute makes explicit that one
of the key objectives of the Plan is “[i]dentifying and
addressing structural weaknesses, systemic flaws, or
other unjustified impediments to effective enforcement
action against the financing, production, trafficking, or
sale of counterfeit or infringing goods.” 6 This Strategic
Plan seeks to do that in detail.
Understanding these threats and impediments to
effective IP enforcement at the macro-level—that is,
their global scope and magnitude—and at the micro
level—the nature of the complex schemes used by
illicit actors to accomplish IP theft on a commercial
scale—is essential. That understanding is important for
the development and implementation of an effective
strategy to minimize the unlawful exploitation and
theft of IP and the harms that stem from such activities.
The nature of these threats and harms should be
well-documented, and our knowledge of them must
continue to grow through research, information-sharing,
and data analysis with each issuance of a new Joint
Strategic Plan over the years to come. In this sense, the
Plan represents part of a continuous process. Moreover,
as technology continues to evolve, the Federal
Government remains attentive to ensuring that lawful
activities are not inadvertently captured by an otherwise
necessary and robust IP enforcement system. 7 A system
that encourages innovation and minimizes unintended
consequences as technology evolves also helps to
identify the illicit actors who might seek to exploit IP and
infringe American products.
As discussed below, the collective weight of
research and reporting establishes that the global scope
and magnitude of counterfeiting, commercial piracy,
“[T]he value of theft of intellectual property from
American industry… represents the single greatest
transfer of wealth in history.”
Gen. Keith Alexander (Ret.), former Director, National Security
Agency, and Commander, U.S. Cyber Command
and trade secret theft are staggering. As discussed
below, one international organization estimates that
international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods now
constitutes 2.5 percent of world trade, while the recent
targeting and theft of trade secrets from American
industry has been described as representing “the single
greatest transfer of wealth in history.” 8
An investigation into the schemes and tactics used
by the illicit actor may tell us what the overall size of the
problem represents. At the micro-level, it is important to
understand that entities that target and exploit IP rights
employ a wide range of complex schemes to generate
illicit profits and evade law enforcement detection.
For example, illicit business models that infringe
and exploit copyrighted content are often deliberately
structured to conceal identities; to create redundancies
so as to ensure operational resiliency in the face of
enforcement actions; and to maximize dissemination
of the unauthorized third-party content by various
means described below. Business models centered
on counterfeit trade often rely on manufacturing
“safe havens;” the manipulation of trade routes with
circuitous intermediary transit points; exploitation of
Free Trade Zones; adoption of product concealment
methods; fraudulent sales tactics; and opaque
distribution structures, in order to deliver fake products
to the market.
Today, everything that can be faked, is being
faked—from food and beverages to personal care
products; automotive parts to medicines; fertilizers
to consumer electronics; software to footwear and
apparel; toys to critical technologies—subjecting
consumers to greater instances of fraud and risks
to health and safety than ever before.
And as these dynamic threats continue to evolve
and migrate across borders, we must not overlook the
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