I'm Mike Mangelson,
I'm the Principal Counsel and Director
for the China Group here at the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office
on behalf of U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office,
I'd like to welcome everyone
to our monthly webinar series.
Today, we're going to be talking
about e-commerce
and protecting IP on e-commerce.
I'll just note that today is part
one of a two part series
that will focus today
on working with the e-commerce
platforms to enforce your IP
and to combat counterfeiters
will have part two of our program
on December second.
And that particular
program will focus on offline
enforcement strategies
when doing e-commerce
business in China.
That includes administrative,
judicial and criminal enforcement.
So just to note that
today's event will be recorded,
and I think there was a slide
before the event started
that showed the email address
asks ChinaIP@uspto.gov.
I encourage all participants
are those listening in
to ask questions to that email box
and and start early
so that you will have
an opportunity to have your
your questions answered
during the session.
I should just note that
if your questions aren't answered
during the session
that we will follow up
with you in an email
and try to make sure
that we get your questions answered.
I also just like to take a moment
to introduce our speakers.
first off, let me
introduce my colleague David Foley,
who is in our China team.
He's an attorney advisor
on both the enforcement
and China IP teams
at the Office of Policy
and International Affairs at PTO.
Prior to joining the USPTO,
David served as lead
counsel in numerous
IP disputes as a trial attorney
in the Civil Division of the U.S.
Department of Justice,
and was detailed
to the Executive Office
of the President for two years
as a senior policy advisor
and deputy in the Office of Trade
and Manufacturing Policy.
We also are pleased to have three
outside speakers
and experts with us today,
and I will first introduced
Anna Delaval
as she is the director for global
brand relations at Amazon,
where she leads a
global team in advancing
Amazon's brand protection program.
Prior to joining Amazon
and have served as VP
and global head of
intellectual property at Ralph Lauren,
we also have Daniel Dougherty.
He is the direct senior director
for Global IP Enforcement
at Alibaba Group.
Prior to joining Alibaba,
Daniel was the former
general counsel of Monster Inc.
We also have a practitioner, Jason Yao.
He is a partner at Wahida
Intellectual Property
and is also a member of the firm's
management committee.
He is also the managing partner
of the firm's Shenzhen
and Hong Kong offices.
Prior to joining one wader,
Jason was the legal counsel
for Proctor and Gamble
and also the lead
Asia Pacific counsel
for Action at Company,
which is the world's largest
golf product manufacturer.
So I want to just take a few moments
at the outset here to set the stage
for our guest speakers.
I want to talk a little bit about
the IP challenges
that are affecting our U.S.
companies who are doing business
e-commerce business in China,
focusing a little bit
more on brand protection strategies
and some best practices
generally before our experts
began to give their remarks.
Just to note that
this program, I believe
in looking at the list of
of of the audience.
We have over 500 people
that are registered for the event
from many different
companies and, you know, practitioners.
We just note that our monthly webinar
series do focus on
providing information
on protecting and enforcing
IP, in particular for SMBs,
small and medium sized enterprises
who are doing business
in and with China.
So with that, I'm going to
take over the screen here.
Share my screen.
And start my presentation.
I just wanted to start off today
by giving some general advice
and information as
in particular a small and medium
sized enterprises
doing e-commerce business in China
and protecting your
intellectual property.
first off, I think it's important
to understand that the U.S.
and Chinese IP legal
systems are different.
And so that if you, for example,
you've registered your trademark
in the United States,
you will not automatically confer
rights in that trademark in China.
It's also very important
as you go into doing business
in or with China,
that you understand
what type of intellectual property
that you're going to need
to protect in order
to meet that business strategy today.
We're going to focus
more on on a business
and e-commerce business model.
So that's that's
most of the intellectual property
we're going to be
discussing is focused
in that on that strategy
and also do your homework
on the differences
between the two systems
and also the tools
that are available for protecting IP,
including the tools that are offered
by many of the e-commerce platforms,
which is the topic that
we're going to discuss today.
I also want to encourage everyone
to implement to develop and implement
a holistic IP strategy
that doesn't just include protection
through registration of trademarks
and patents, for example,
but also includes
a program for monitoring
what's going on in China,
in the marketplaces,
for example, online marketplaces
to see how others may be using
appropriately or inappropriately
or intellectual property
and, if necessary,
have the ability to investigate
those uses of your IP
and also enforce that.
So it's important,
I think, to have this strategy
in place at the outset
and not just focus
on protecting your rights
through registration.
So let me just talk about the top
two challenges that our rights holders
or companies are facing in China
when they do e-commerce business.
And really, it comes down
to brand protection.
The first is the obstacle
to actually protecting a trademark,
to getting the trademark rights
that are necessary
for you to enforce against,
for example, counterfeiters.
And the big problem
there is with bad faith trademarks.
And I think we've had
a number of programs in the past
that talked about bad the trademarks.
I'm not going to
address that in detail today,
given the limited time.
But I should note that
that's one of the most important thing
that a company, regardless
of what type of product or service
you're selling into China.
Nearly all the the companies
that we work with,
hundreds of companies
have have all faced.
Even if they're a technology company
or a consumer products company, they
they face problems
with bad faith trademarks or squatters
that have already
preempted their ability to trademark
or protect their trademark
through a registration.
And then the other issue
that we're going to be focusing on
today is the widespread
counterfeiting and piracy
and in that regard.
first off, let me just
I think it's so important to
to emphasize
what we need to so best practices
on trademarks because the primary tool
that you will be using in
enforcing on e-commerce
platforms is trademark rights.
Now there are opportunities,
and we'll talk a little bit later
about how you should develop
a basketful of rights
in case that some right, for example,
a trademark right, is weak in China.
But the bottom line is it's important
this is probably the
most important thing
in a priority in terms of,
you know, allocating resources
to develop and protect
IP trademark leads out list
if you're doing e-commerce business,
so make sure that you file early.
Again, China is the first
to file system, and that's
one of the part.
The strict adherence
to that first to file
system is one of the reasons
why we have the bad faith
trademark issue
where you have squatters
that are registry marks
before you have an opportunity
to do that.
Also file often
that seems a little bit strange to say.
You have to file your trademark often
and by by that we mean to make sure
that you are filing
into other classes
of goods and services
that you may not
have considered before,
because the squatters
also like to identify those
and come in and register
in those classes,
which will give them some rights
if you file, for example, a notice
in an e-commerce platform.
Many times
they will use that registration
as in a counter-notice
to claim that they also have rights
to avoid being taken down
from a platform.
Also, file a Chinese
version of your mark,
and you can also consider
using the Madrid protocol
to file in to China.
It's the most.
It's the quickest and most efficient
and less expensive way.
But there are some issues that you need
to consider very important issues.
And so I highly advise
that you work with local counsel,
IP counsel as you go over these issues
and then make sure
that you also file
and register that
those trademark rights
in your own name.
Now let's just go on to
counterfeiting for a moment
and introduce this.
This topic set the stage
for counterfeiting.
This is one of those areas
in particular with China,
as we see them taking many steps,
many measures
over the course of the last year
and a half over 70
new pieces of legislation
to try to address
weaknesses in intellectual property
protections and enforcement.
This is one of those areas
where we actually see
an increase globally in that problem.
The problem of of
of counterfeiting worldwide.
It's estimated that
by next year,
the economic value of counterfeit
products will exceed
$2 trillion and displace
over 5 million workers.
So that's it's a
problem is a growing problem.
As you see from the United States
last year
in terms of confiscated
counterfeits at the border,
83% of all seizures
came from China, Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Mostly, those are products
that manufactured in China are transept
through Hong Kong.
And over the course
of the last ten years,
that number has ranged
between 80 and 90%.
And those statistics are very similar.
If you take a look
at the source of worldwide
counterfeit products
that are being traded around the world
as you take a look at certain
industries, sectors
and product sectors.
This is also important
as you develop a strategy
to take a look at
how problematic this is
for your particular product
that you're seeing you see globally.
The share of global cross-border trade
in counterfeits,
for example, with footwear is 22%
of all products being sold
internationally.
If you take a look at
those numbers in China, they are.
They are higher than the global
a range, for example.
If you take a look at wine,
over 50% of wine
that retails for more than $35
in China is counterfeit.
So what's the reasons
behind the growth
in counterfeiting over the years?
You know,
we had the traditional reasons
of lax IPR enforcement,
corruption in the growing,
the growth of free trade zones
around the world
where a lot of IP are
counterfeits are traded.
But I think also it's important
for our discussion today
to talk about how
the infringers are becoming
very adept at finding new methods
and technologies
to counter enforcement efforts.
This includes
the evolution of online markets,
and you may have noticed how
the counterfeiting problem
has started to shift,
for example, from e-commerce,
strictly e-commerce platforms
to the privacy of social commerce
like WeChat
and live streaming platforms
where the products
are being advertised.
And information is provided
to how to consumers
on how to acquire those products.
We also see that
infringers are shipping goods
as a result of this,
you know, evolution of online markets
or shipping goods in small parcels,
which makes it also much more difficult
to detect in China.
The infringers understands
how the criminal system works
and how traditionally
there have been criminal thresholds.
While we've tried to work
to get those removed.
They realize that if they warehouse
minimal inventories,
there's less a chance
that they will be
criminally prosecuted.
And then they're
also doing things like chain,
not advertising products
without a label
or sending products
overseas without a label
and then affixing those labels,
those counterfeit
labels to the products
after while they
send the product to the consumer.
Let me just make a couple observations
about e-commerce.
But while I before I finish up
and turn the time over
to our guest speakers,
we know that the e-commerce market
in China is very large
and it's growing.
I think it's important to note
also that during the pandemic,
we've seen an explosion of e-commerce
from around the world
, which has been beneficial, as it's
been more difficult at times
to get access through traditional
channels of trade.
This is the same for China
in particular.
If you take a look
at what's happening in southern China,
which is really the center
of manufacturing
for China in the world,
if you take a look
at Guangdong Fujian province
and many of the small manufacturers
that fed into the global
production of products
and sell products around the world
were impacted by the pandemic
and started to look to
international e-commerce platforms
to sell directly
to consumers around the world.
And so this is part of this evolution
that we've been talking about.
I think it's also important
as we go into this discussion
to understand that each platform
that you may be considering
to sell on has a unique
and unique business model,
and that their IP enforcement policies,
including the notice
and takedown procedures
that they have , are different
and also understand and appreciate.
I think if you are a small
and medium size enterprise
that you may not have the attention
that a global brand
may get in a platform.
And so it's important to find out
what's the best way
that you can approach that issue
to get attention
and get effective results
working with the platforms.
And fortunately,
we have the platform here today
that can help give you
some of that advice.
I'll just mention briefly,
excuse me, that China has been
over the course of the last year
taking a number of steps
legislatively to address
with how companies can enforce
their their rights on
e-commerce platforms.
These are some of the measures
that have been adopted
or soon to be adopted.
Most recently, the e-commerce law
that was introduced
a draft was introduced
a couple of months ago.
We've commented on those
that you and I should just mention.
This is another thing that our
our our team at at USPTO does
as we analyze these, these
new measures that come out
and then we provide
comments on behalf of the U.S.
government.
This is an important thing
I think that we can do
and in particular work
with rights holders.
We we have meetings with rights holders
to understand their concerns
about these provisions
and work with China
to make sure that these
these provisions are
and these measures are effective in
improving the system there.
I'll just final make a final
comment on just a
for best practices,
and I think these are very important.
I mentioned earlier
that it's important
not to just rely on one form of IP.
You may find that, for example,
your trademark is not available.
You can rely on in
that case, potentially
if you have, for example, a logo
or a brand that has a logo
has an artistic element to it,
you could protect that
through copyright .
There's also a design patent
in other ways
that you could potentially
protect yourself and use as a basis to
to take down an infringing
store on a platform.
Also plan early for enforcement.
I can't overemphasize this
that you need to have
that understanding
because it's most likely
that you will have to enforce your IP
if you're selling into China.
And so work with competent China
IP counsel that don't.
It's not just an agent that
that protects through
registering marks,
but also has the
understanding necessary
and the experience
to use the full range of protections
that you are going to need
to enforce your rights.
They're keeping good records
is also very important.
And then finally,
I want to just mention
the importance of
looking to government resources,
including our China team at U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office,
our IP attachés.
We have eleven U.S.
IP lawyers here at headquarters
with expertize on China
IP and Dave and I
are members of that team.
And we also have our
three offices in China,
in Beijing, Shanghai and GuangZhou
and our IP attachés that head up
those offices have Duncan
Wilson in Beijing.
Conrad Wang in GuangZhou.
And our newest IP
attaché, Julie Schwartz,
who is heading out
to Shanghai here shortly.
And they also have local expertize,
locally trained IP lawyers
in the office there.
Our goal in our our team
is to help rights holders
and help to improve the IP protections
enforcement for our rights holders
who do business with China.
And we do that in a number of ways.
one is through the outreach
that we're holding today
and also through our one on one
in our group consultations
and meetings with rights holders
to better understand
what type of problems they have,
what types of issues
they're dealing with.
We can have one on one consultations.
I encourage you if you have
particular issues
to reach out to us
to talk about some of those issues.
And also
we can in certain circumstances.
And this is also important
for practitioners to understand.
We can advocate in China
on behalf of rights holders,
and this is typically a situation
where the system is broken down.
It's not working properly.
Say, for example,
local protectionism issue.
We can raise that issue
with the authorities.
We can attend local hearings
and court hearings to shine light on
that issue, to make sure
that things are transparent
and that our companies
are being treated fairly.
I want to go over on.
We have
on the policy side,
we also work with
our Chinese counterparts in IPR.
For example,
we recently had a meeting with them
and Commissioner Shen.
We have programing with
with our counterparts
there with the courts.
And that's also,
I think, an important part
of what our team does.
I'll just finish with this slide here.
This shows our IPR toolkit,
the cover page of our IPR toolkit,
which is located on our IP China IP
web page on the USPTO Dot gov site.
I encourage you to go there
for additional resources.
This resource was just recently updated
with all of the
recent changes that have happened over
the last couple of years
in China , so that's a good resource.
I should also just mention
that our web page.
Our China IP web
page is going through a remake redesign
with a much more with added resources.
And so I think you'll find
that very valuable.
Look forward to that rollout
that's going to happen in November.
So with that, I'm going to now
turn the time over. I'll.
I'm sharing my slides here.
And I will turn the time over
to Anna for her presentation.
We'll just go through
the next three presentations
from our guest speakers and experts.
Anna, Dan and Jason.
And following their presentations,
David Foley is going to
lead a moderated Q&A discussion,
so I'll turn the time over to Anna.
Thank you, Mike,
and thank you to the USPTO
China team
for putting together these webinars
to the other panelists in the audience
for their interest and participation.
My name is Anna Dalla Val and I'm
the director of global
press relations at Amazon
and my team partners with brands,
industry association
and government stakeholders,
as well to educate
Amazon Prime Protection programs.
And more importantly,
we also gather the necessary feedback
that we need to constantly improve.
So I'm excited to for the opportunity
to share here today.
Announced today on Amazon
global efforts to protect consumer
selling partners and
brands from counterfeits.
Next slide, please.
Let me open by saying the Amazon
really strived to be our most customer
centric company.
We offer a vast selection
of products, low prices
and fast delivery.
What does that have to do
with brand protection?
Well,
the way we deliver on
that vision is by creating
a shopping experience
that customers, sellers
and brands can trust
because we know that
trust is easy to lose
and hard to gain back.
And we know that
many of Amazon's
selling partners are small
and medium sized enterprises,
and they represent the majority
of the physical products
that are actually sold in our store.
So we are proud to have
those small businesses
thrive and create
hundreds of thousands of jobs
in their local community.
But in order to do that successfully,
we work hard to protect this customer
and selling farmers from counterfeits
and all other types of abuse
that can be found in a store
in 2020.
For example, we invested
$700 million in dedicated
more than 10,000 employees
to stop the fraud and abuse.
And because of the
significant resources
that we invested in the efforts
and the partnership
that we have received from friends,
we have been able to provide consumers
with trustworthy shopping experience.
With less than 0.01% of the products
sold on Amazon last year
receive a counterfeit complaint
from a customer.
Next slide, please.
We've heard from Mike,
the counterfeit problem
is continuing to grow.
And so while we are probably
your proud excuse me
of the progress we have made,
we will continue to invest and innovate
and stay ahead of counterfeiters.
So we approach our counterfeit
impact force through three strategies.
The first is we have built
a robust, proactive controls
to protect customer
in our store
from receiving a counterfeit product
in the first place.
second, we have developed powerful
industry leading tool,
including brand registry,
Project zero and transparency
for brands to partner
with us
and ensure that only authentic products
are sold in our store.
And third, we work
with brands and governments
around the world
to hold counterfeiters accountable.
By sharing information
with law enforcement,
and support the criminal
investigation and prosecution
and by pursuing civil
litigation with brands.
So I would love to provide
a little bit more details
about each of the three
anti-counterfeiting strategies.
So next slide, please.
Our first objective,
I said, is to ensure the customer
and brands never see a listing
for an infringing product in our store.
But we also want to make
a straightforward
for honest entrepreneurs
and small businesses
to open selling accounts.
What keeping the bad actors out.
So we take a proactive
and aggressive approach
to try and accomplish both.
We focus on two pillars:
sellers vetting and
automated brand protection
or ABP as we call them here at Amazon.
So our team invented and leveraged
of a combination of computer
based machine learning
and expert human review
to vet every prospective
third party seller
as they attempt to
register in our store.
In addition, to
verifying document
and machine information
against third party and
government's record,
we recently introduced
two innovation...
The first is live video verification.
We actually have to pivot
from in-person video
in-person verification
because of COVID.
So this is where we can track
that one on one conversation
with potential seller
to verify their identity
in documentation.
And it has proven to be
a successful method.
So it's a high touch experience
that also allows us to help
be honest entreprenuer and small businesses
that are trying to sell on Amazon
for the first time.
While Making it even more difficult
for freudsters to hide.
Another recent innovation
that we developed
in the seller vetting
space was in response
to a casino that we identified
where bad actors
were actually providing
false addresses.
They were seeking
to change the address
after the registration was completed.
So to address this, we
launched an address verification system
where I had my own sense
new and existing
send a postcard to the address
they provided
and the postal address
a verification code.
Much like the one
that you will receive on your phone
this day, very often
to confirm your identity.
When you're trying to sign in into
that sort of website, you or
your bank account
and sell their must report back to them
with that
ID
code within a limited period of time.
So a result of the combination
of the machine learning,
this human expert
review and innovative,
even if low tech
solution like the guard
last year , only 6% of all
attempted account registration
passed our verification processes
and we're able to this product for sale.
Next slide, please.
So the second pillar of our preventive
strategy is automated brand protection.
Amazon is proactively removing
any potential suspect listing
that we may find in our stores.
Through automated.
protection that
leverages a combination of algorithm
machine learning, hueristics
to scan our catalog
and we do that constantly.
So our technology analyzes
different type of data
about the products,
the brands, the seller,
we analyze text imagery,
other risk signals and patterns
and to surface potential infringement.
So you may wonder,
what does the suspect
the listing look like?
Well, there can be products listing
that incorrectly use
trademarked terms in their title.
Or maybe they are images that
use an unauthorized logo
or sellar shipping product
from countries where certain
brand of product
is not manufactured or distributed.
So the bottom line is really
that we look at a lot of the signal
and there's a lot that goes into this
automated brand protection
which are always are the work
in the background
to protecting customers and brands.
Next slide, please.
So our second strategy
to protect the interests
of our brands and store
from counterfeiting
and fraud is all about
working with brands
because we know the brands know
their products best
and their right to intellectual
property rights.
And so we provide them with tools
to protect the brand
and we empower them to identify
and remove any counterfeiting
they think they see.
As Mike said, you know,
the basis for any brand protection
program is for a brand
to register and protect its
intellectual property
rights, globally if
possible, and needed.
So we wanted to have a small
and medium sized businesses
not navigate what can be
sometimes confusing and costly process
to protect their name, their logo,
the product design
and other aspects of their brands.
That's why we designed
the IP accelerator
specifically with medium
and small size businesses in mind.
As a meaning to make it easier
and more cost effective
to protect that IP.
This program connect
entrepreneurs with a
trusted network of IP law firm
that provide high quality
trademark registrations services
at competitive prices.
In 2020, iP accelerator,
which started off in the US,
expanded to Europe, India and Japan.
And this year, they further
expanded to Canada, Mexico,
Singapore, Australia and Brazil.
And last year alone, more
than 7000 small and medium
sized businesses
use that IP Accelerator in the US
or in Europe to file
a trademark application.
Ever seen therefore,
early access to brand registry
and the benefits that come with it.
Next slide, please.
........ next slide.
Thank you.
So once you have a painting
or registered trademark,
you can access brand registry
so it can be helpful
to to think of brand registry
as our unbrella program
that allows access
to powerful tools.
The brands used to build
and protect our business.
one of these tools is to Report a violation,
which allows right owners
to search Amazon store
for potentially infringing products,
and rights owners
can use keywords, images
or other product
identifiers for their search.
And also, brands in brand registry
could see the latest status
of their reported violation,
as well as the notices
that have submitted
over the last six months.
Next slide, please.
And next slide,
so he could cover this as well.
Thank you.
In addition, we have also Project zero,
which provides brands
with the unprecedented ability
to directly remove counterfeit product
listing from our store
in nearly real time.
So it's a self service,
counterfeit removal tool.
You don't have to contact Amazon,
but you can just take
an infringing product down
as a brand owner on your own.
So like all of our tools,
obviously Project zero
has safeguards in place
to ensure the brands are operating
with a very high degree of accuracy
and not harming honest
seller in our store.
And finally, if for
some reason a brand is not
enrolled in brand
registry, they can still file
a notice, using Amazon product
notice form .
So that ensures all right holders
have said access to an efficient
takedown mechanism.
So regardless of which
of this free channel
a brand uses to report a violation,
probably Project zero
or the public notice form
to report an infringement.
I think the important and key part
is that Amazon uses the data
from those notices of infringement
to better train this proactive
and perpetual tool.
Those ABP's we spoke
about earlier. Far
reducing the need for brands
to file notices going forward.
Next slide, please.
And next.
So brands can also
participate in our
transparency program.
Every unit uses a unique
2D serialization code
and we're able to scan each
and every unit for authenticity
before ships to the customer.
And we're now working with 15,000
brands and have enable
the protection of more than 500,000
products unique.
And we continue to see
promising results.
And here the feedback from participants
So,
All these two brand
registry Project zero
Transparency are powered
by Amazon Advance Technology,
but also really rely on each brand's
expert knowledge of their product
because we believe that together
we can more effectively detect
and stop counterfeit.
Next slide.
And next.
Thank you.
So finally, our last key
area of work is holding back
the bad actors accountable.
And so while we put
tremendous investment
in our proactive measures,
we know that bad actors are relentless
and will continue to evolve
and try to obtain
to evade and circumvent our protection.
So we don't want to just chase
this criminal away from Amazon,
but we want to make sure
that we stopped
counterfeiting anywhere.
And so about a year ago,
Amazon established a
new counterfeit crime unit
dedicated to bringing to
justice this bad actor.
And it's a global team
made up of
former federal prosecution,
experienced investigator
and data analysts.
That work hard to disrupt
and dismantle this criminal network.
And we applaud the law enforcement
authority who are a big part
of this fight, of course,
and this team has taken upon
itself to really lead in
identifying new and emerging
trends to counterfeiters
are using to perpetrate
the fraud against consumers.
They worked in many different
types of brands and right owners,
including household names
that you know like, Getty
Hanes brand and GoPro
Italian luxury brands
like Mossoni, valentina, bergamo,
but also small business
like JBL chat throws,
which sell like travel
products for parents,
Dachled a family
owned coffee company.
So I know that we will be
focusing more on offline
online to line enforcement
and cooperation with
law enforcement in the second part
of this webinar series.
So for now, I want to thank you again
for the opportunity
to talk about Amazon
brand protection efforts.
And I will pass it on to
them.
Thank you.
Thank you, Anna.
If we can move to
the next slide, please.
Thank you.
And I would like to begin by
by thanking the US
Patent and Trademark Office,
Mike David Kelly, the entire team.
We really appreciate
the opportunity to come
and thank you everyone who
has taken the time from their days,
their busy schedules to attend.
So we hope that we will provide
some meaningful information for you and
we'll go ahead and jump into it.
Next slide, please.
So.
This is what I refer to informally
as as our four pillars,
our approach to IP protection.
And you'll see that
the first is what I
would call reactive,
you know, the notice and take down
where we are receiving
a request to remove a listing
from the rights holder
or the registered agent. And
and then the second pillar
is our proactive efforts.
And I'll talk about
that as well are offline,
as Ana mentioned
and Mike mentioned as well.
There is the next
presentation in the series
will focus on offline enforcement.
So I won't spend a lot of time on that.
But do we want to
provide a well-rounded overview of
our efforts.
And then so we'll
talk about that briefly
and then the last two
stakeholder collaboration.
And so we'll talk about
that more broadly.
But events exactly like this
where we are given the opportunity to
to come to you as rights
holders or attorneys
for four rights holders
or or IP professionals,
and to learn more about our
policies and practices
and how you can work
most effectively
with us to protect your IP.
So next slide, please, we'll move into
notice and takedown.
And so I want to draw
everyone's attention to
at the top of this slide,
you will see IPP Dot,
Alibaba Group, dot com.
And that is one of the
most important URLs and the the IPP.
It stands for IP protection.
So our IP platform is
it's really a one stop location
where you can,
as a rights holder, can go
and enforce your IP,
you know, across a number
of Alibaba platforms.
And it is something
that we have invested heavily
in, particularly in the last few years.
We introduced a new platform
and have continued
to improve that experience.
And
a couple of things that I want to say,
you know, you will see
in the blue, in the middle,
it says the Alibaba
IP Rights Protection Handbook.
And so there are
a lot of resources also on this site.
So the IP Protection Handbook is
is literally a step by step guide
that we have developed
to to act as a resource for people who
are looking to affect
takedown requests on our platforms.
And you may be able to see
in the upper right corner
the the IP platform is offered in
English and Chinese.
And and so the the handbook itself is
is actually offered in a number
of additional languages.
So, for example,
it is offered in French,
Italian, Spanish, German,
Korean, Japanese
and of course, English,
and that that is really a
step by step guide.
To how you can use this platform.
So this is the platform
that rights holder would go to
if they were looking to
register an account.
And they can register an account,
they can put their IP into that account
and then they can use that
to enforce on their platforms.
We accept the full range of IP.
So, you know, patent rights,
trademark rights copyrights,
design rights and for
European rights holders,
unregistered design rights.
I do want to note that.
You are probably familiar
with Alibaba platforms,
but then I'll take
just a quick moment to note that
we have domestic for us we are a
Chinese company,
you know , we have domestic facing
platforms like Taobao and Tmall
and to enforce IP on those platforms.
It does. We do require that it be.
China issued IP for enforcement
on those platforms
for international platforms
such as Alibaba.com,
AliExpress for those platforms.
You can also use
the IP that you have
registered in Europe
and in the United States.
So it's important
and this hearkens back a little bit to
what Mike was saying earlier of
of being thoughtful about
developing that basket of rights
and thinking about
where you want to do enforcement
and making sure
that you have the IP that
that you would like to have
for the purposes of that enforcement.
And you know, it's it's
a very technology driven platform.
It's very effective.
The overwhelming majority
of takedown requests are processed
within 24 hours.
And so it's quite quite fast
and quite efficient.
If we can go to the next slide, please.
This is
just a snapshot of some of
the resources that are available.
So I mentioned the IP
Protection Handbook,
which is this really a
step by step guide
you'll see in the middle
toward the bottom?
The ICC Market Safe logo
The ICC is the International
Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition,
and they are
one of the oldest organizations
in the United States
dedicated to anti-counterfeiting.
And we have worked with them
for a number of years,
and the market safe program
is something that we're very proud
to to partner with them on.
And it is an ICC initiative and it is.
It really is focused on SMEs.
And so, you know,
if you are an SME
and you are looking for some assistance
in terms of
and enforcing on Alibaba platforms,
you can
you'll see my contact information
at the end of this presentation. But
but feel free to reach out to me.
But you also can
search ICC markets safe
and you'll find it on their website.
And the ICC actually
receives information
from the rights holder
about infringing listings
that they would like to have reported.
And then the ICC actually
does the operation of reporting those
those listings taking care
of the submissions,
the counter notices
those sorts of things. It is.
It is completely free.
There's no need to be
a member of the ICC, and it's something
that Alibaba is proud
to be able to provide.
It's a valuable resource,
and so we provide the resources
for the ICC to offer that at no charge.
It's a year long program
and the idea is that
by the end of that year,
any SME will be
familiar and able to to effectively,
you know, do their own takedowns.
Above that, you will see
that is actually an online form.
So I mentioned the IPP platform
where you can register
an account, where you can
upload your IP documents
that you want to use for enforcement.
And and that really
is the most sophisticated,
most advanced
and the most efficient way
to go about that.
But we do also have an online form
that does not require registration.
You also cannot store
your documents there,
so that's something
that you would need to do each time.
But for a rights holder,
particularly SMEs
who may be not familiar
with enforcement on our platforms
or who maybe think that they
will only do it on occasion
, that can be a good, good
option for them as well.
And then in the upper left,
you'll see the words
How do I file an IPR
infringement complaint?
And if you I'm not sure
that you can't see it,
but there is a blue tab.
So that is this is a page from the IP
platform, and I mentioned that
there are a lot of good resources.
That particular tab
is an SME support center.
So that's something that
that we revamped and launched,
and it has a lot of
really good resources.
Effie Hughes case studies,
which really use cases
on how to effectively,
you know,
what are some of the most common
reporting scenarios,
how to go about reporting those?
The really are a lot of
good resources tutorials
for us.
It means there's also a simplified
set of reporting codes
to make it easier for them
to report and have success
in protecting their IP.
So it's really encourage people
to go to IPP on Alibaba Group Gqom
and you will will
if you're not familiar with it
and you will see the resources
available there.
Next slide, please.
And we're moving
now to
to some of the proactive measures.
And each year, Alibaba
proactively removes
more listings than all rights
holders combined
in their takedown requests.
And that's something
that we invest a lot in
in terms of human resources,
in terms of technology.
We have advanced algorithms designed
to identify potentially
problematic listings and remove those.
And you'll see there that
the vast majority
of those 96% are removed
before a single sale.
And we know it's important
for the protection of consumers,
for the for the protection of IP
and rights holder brands and other IP.
It's important to get those removed
and to get those removed quickly.
And so so that's something that that.
And given the size of our platforms,
it would not be possible really to to
to have that kind of success
without using technology.
So that's something that
we continually invest in.
Next slide, please.
And I'll talk,
as I said,
not not super long
on the off line investigation,
there's a separate
presentation on this,
but I do want to
talk about it a little bit.
We have an offline investigations team.
They are made up of,
for the most part,
former law enforcement themselves,
and this team works
very closely with PSBs
and provinces across China.
And having come from law enforcement
themselves, they understand
how you know, how law enforcement
wants to receive information,
how they can effectively provide
that information to them
and ideally provide them
with the most appealing case
possible in the hope
that they will take that up.
Law enforcement around
the world, of course, has
threshold requirements and and resource
constraints, and
the idea is to to make the cases
as compelling as possible.
And I do think that this team is really
some of the unsung heroes.
You know, they they
they are investigators by nature,
and they will do what
they can
to try and tie together any sort of,
you know,
upstream related accounts,
downstream related accounts
and that they think
might be of interest
to law enforcement.
And and these come
these cases are developed
really one of three ways
from our own proactive efforts.
We sometimes are referring things
to law enforcement
that we find
sometimes law enforcement come to us
and they may be working
on a separate case
and they find some
connection to Alibaba that
they make a formal request to us.
And then, of course,
from the rights holder,
the brand owner is initiating a case.
It's a case that they are working up.
Once they identify a target
that they want to pursue
and they're ready
to refer it to the PSB
do often come and talk to our team
and let them know this case is coming.
Ask them if they could start
to do their investigative work
and and hopefully
that's persuasive to the PSB as well,
that they can let them know
that Alibaba is aware of it and
and has begun its efforts
to help support.
And just a few quick statistics
last year, in 2020, there were over
20,744 investigations
that we assisted with.
There were nearly 3000 arrests.
2927 and nearly 15 hundred
facilities, manufacturing
and distribution facilities
that were shut down.
And I do get this question.
Sometimes people feel like,
well, Alibaba is as an online company,
as a technology company.
Why would you know,
why are you so heavily
invested in offline cases as well?
And the truth is,
you know, it's important
to get rid of problematic listings.
It's important to get
bad actors off the site.
But these are not virtual goods.
You know,
these are are manufactured
products with points of manufacture
and distribution.
And we feel like
we can have the greatest impact
if we can help remove those
from from the stream of commerce.
So, so
we're very proud of that work.
Next slide, please.
I also mentioned
stakeholder collaboration.
You'll see some
of the initiatives there, the Alibaba
Anti-Counterfeiting Alliance, the AACA.
That is something that has grown to
we are approaching
our five year anniversary
in January will be five years.
It started as 30 companies.
These were companies
that we were working with.
You know,
as I just described, you know,
offline investigations working together
and some of the proactive efforts
to help
make those as effective
and efficient as possible.
And we felt like we were doing this
in somewhat of a siloed way.
You know, we were
working on these things
with individual companies
in much the same way,
and they had similar interests.
And we felt like
if we could bring that together
under one umbrella and, you know,
give the companies
a chance to interact and and they can,
you know, find out, you know,
what are the synergies
where they can and can work
with each other on sometimes
they may be pursuing the same targets
and it's a chance
for them to combine resources.
And,
you know,
we thought it was a good idea.
We thought it would work well.
I think it's been even more successful
than we anticipated
that what started as three
companies has now grown
to more than 200 companies
and over 700 brands,
and we found over time
that we needed to just move them into
a rough industry
groups so that there
was a little more structure
and it could be more effective.
It was easier when it was
a few dozen brands.
And so we have different
working groups, you know,
and we know that
the needs or the trends
or the challenges
that the automotive
industry, for example,
may find may be different
than the luxury industry.
And so we try and
provide that structure
so that they can focus on
the things that are most important
to them.
It's a chance for them
to work on offline
cases, proactive measures.
You know, as Mike was saying earlier,
there's been a lot of legislation.
It's a chance to help understand that
how the laws are changing
and the impact of those
and you'll see at the bottom
the small advisory committee.
This is something that I've mentioned
eSIMs a number of times
during this presentation,
and this is something that that is
really important to us.
You know, SMEs really
are the lifeblood of our platforms.
And so they are something
that is very near to our heart.
And you know, a number of the AACA
members are large
multinational companies
with, you know, personnel
on the ground and in China.
But it was important to us to also have
an opportunity for SMEs
to bring their voice to the table
and so that they could
help us understand,
you know, some of the unique challenges
that they may have
and how we best can
support their efforts.
And so we have for the International
Essence Advisory Committee, we have.
Members from the United States,
of course, from Spain,
from France, from Germany, Italy
and a number of countries
in the UK as well.
So we're very proud
of that work as well
and mentioned the market safe
program earlier and and also
events like this, of course .
And we work with
the European Commission,
where a member of the day
an emoji on anti-counterfeiting there
and and we work with the Observatory,
the EU IP Observatory as well.
And one of the working group experts
for intermediaries with the
with the Observatory.
Next slide, please.
And this is I believe
this is my final slide
before my contact information.
And you know, we
of course, this is impacted
by by COVID
and the restrictions related to that,
but we have done a number of
of
IP protection summits
and we had done them
in Madrid, in London, in Rome.
And there are many stakeholders
and in for us,
this is one of the most
important opportunities
for these stakeholders
to come together.
And you can see in
the logos, you know, often
we will have these at
hosted at universities.
And and, you know, we value the input
and the perspective
that the academia brings to
IP and IP protection,
as as well as law enforcement
policymakers and other government
officials rights holders.
Of course, we as the platform.
And there are many stakeholders,
including consumers.
You know, I didn't
mention this earlier, but with the ACA,
consumer awareness
campaigns is something else
that we have done
and consumer focused initiatives.
So there really is an effort
to try and bring
all of the stakeholders together
to build a real community
for the for awareness
and protection of IP.
And in next slide, please,
I think this is my contact information.
And there I don't
know if you can see it well,
but it's my name Dan
Doherty, Dewji H e r t y
an Alibaba hyphen AECOM.
So thank you, and I will turn it
over to you, Jason.
Thank you Dan.
Many thanks.
[unintelligble] Peter?
I will my share with you,
my experience in dealing with
IP Infringemnt in China.
Michael just mentioned
and I work for a few U.S.
companies as in-house counsel
for 18 years before I move to private
practice seven years ago,
and now I work for an IP law firm.
Helping a lot of clients
protecting their IP rights in China.
Many of them are medium,
small size enterprise.
Hopefully, my sharing
will be helpful for the
for the audience today
to better understand
the situation here in China
and the former strategy
that's cost effective and workable.
Please go to the next slide.
first of all, I'll provide you
a general assessment
on the overall situation
based on my firsthand
experience in China.
And then I will share
with you my suggestions
what can be done to tackle
infringing activities.
And I'll show you a successful story
through a case study on
how SMEs can work together
with their competitors
in the same industry to effectively
to effectively fight
with counterfeiting problem
in here in China.
Here a few key findings
and observations.
Please go to the next slide.
Here are a few key
findings and observations
on the overall situation of online
infringement issue.
first of all, as Mike
has mentioned, in his presentation
and most of the audience here
may have already known.
Internet has become the major channel
for counterfeiters to promote
and sell their products.
The COVID 19 pandemic has just enhanced
and increased the trend.
Social media has quickly become
a very significant part of life
for most of the people
around the world.
The combination of social media
and traditional online
shopping platforms
has provided a perfect channel
for counterfeiters to
market and sell products.
And to make it extremely
hard for brand owners to monitor
and race, counterfeit
activities online.
So it's important to work with online
shopping platforms
in monitoring and tracking down
listings of the infringing products.
However, as we all know,
counterfeiters can always figure out
how to release their products
without being detected.
So it's equally important
to conduct off-line investigations
on repeat repeat offenders
and pursue criminal
and civil liabilities
against those key players.
And finally,
I have to be honest with you,
we can never expect that
we can completely eliminate
counterfeit problem
from the marketplace online or offline.
We can only control the problem within,
except within the acceptable level.
Even if we work very hard.
OK, enough being said.
Let's take a look of what
we can do
to protect our brands
in the cyberspace.
Please go to the next slide.
OK.
first of all, every brand
owner should have an online
monitoring program.
It's hard to imagine
that a brand can't ignore
what's going on on the internet.
People are often surprised
by what they see
when they have a search
on some platforms.
For example, on Pinduoduo
in China and a few other platforms,
you will be surprised on
what we can find on those platforms
or we can simply Google
the internet, Google
your brands on the internet.
It's safe to say that
no brand is immune
from the disease of counterfeiting.
I believe online monitoring
is the basic thing
a brand owner should do
with their brand protection program.
It can be done internally
by an in-house team
or through a outside service providers.
I'm sure, you know, a lot of
very professional service providers
that they can provide online monitoring
for the small and medium
sized companies.
And the next step is to work
collaboratively with online
platforms like Alibaba and Amazon,
just like Dan and Anna just introduced
and fully used the complaint
and takedown system
provided by those major platforms.
And these platforms have invested
a lot of resources
in their intellectual property
protection program,
just like Dan just mentioned,
and the brand owners
should learn how
to leverage those efforts
and protect their brands
in the most cost effective way.
And every online
platforms have certain rules,
of course, on notice and takedowns.
So some of the listings may not be easy
to be taken down
because some of these platforms
are not easy to be satisfied
and very often
some listings cannot be taken down
through the online complaint system.
We see more and more browsers
filing civil lawsuits in China
against those listings
that cannot be taken down
through the company's system.
As you may have noticed,
courts in China
have become more aggressive
in giving higher damages.
Especially in those
counterfeiting cases.
That's why it makes more sense
to file civil lawsuits for injunction
orders and monetary
damages in China now.
And those are major
platforms like Taobao, JD
and a few other platforms.
Have been very cooperative
in providing
ID information of the sellers
before a lawsuit is filed.
And after a lawsuit is filed.
You can actually apply
a order from the court
and the court would be
served to the platforms
and the platforms who will provide
transaction records to the court
so you can find out
how many products have been sold
and how much profits have been made
by the counterfeiters.
And then you can claim your damages
based on those information.
And you most of such cases
that the damage awarded
to the brand owners
the can pay off their legal expenses.
And if you can find
a big number of transaction
records, the damage
can be much bigger
and much more than
what you have spent for
for the legal actions.
And if you have extra
budget is always helpful
to identify high profile sellers
or reputed offenders
for off line investigation
and enforcement actions,
and you will create great deterrence
among counterfeiters
if some of them can be put in jail.
I will encourage you to do
at least a few rate actions.
On an annual basis in China
so that you can keep
the pressure on those
would-be counterfeiters.
Of course, if you have more budget,
it will always be effective
to stop the entire counterfieting
activities in China
by tracing back the
distribution network
and the manufacturers
to pursue criminal
prosecution against those
bad guys.
And if? If
you are successful in doing so,
the entire counterfeit,
industry will be shocked
and quiet down for a very long time.
And now I would like to share
please go to the next slide.
I would like to share very briefly
with you a very successful story
from the US golf manufacturer
under Counterfeiting Working Group.
The group was formed by
all of the major golf
brands in the US,
including a Kushner, Titlist
Callaway, Carignan,
Sirieix, Ongpin and TaylorMade.
The group has been
has a very aggressive online
monitoring program
and offline investigation strategy.
Earlier this year, the group
identified a one seller on
HoaBoa. they did a test purchase,
and they were able to locate
the physical address of the seller
and then they set up
surveillance on the seller.
In a few weeks,
they were able to find out
another five online sellers
that are connected.
And then they traced back
to the assembly place,
the warehouse and the manufacturer
in different cities.
And last month,
they worked with the Shanghai
police, and raided
more than ten locations
in five provinces.
And all of the dealers were arrested
for criminal prosecution.
And over 21,000 counterfeit
items were seized,
including golf clubs, bags, shoes
and the many other products.
And those counterfeiters
who will be criminally prosecuted
and put in jail.
And you can imagine the deterrents
such an operation can create
among the counterfeiters.
Please go to the next slide.
Here are a few takeaways
from the story.
first of all.
Just like Dan and Anna mentioned,
you should understand
IPR protection policies
of different platforms
and take full advantage
of those tools and programs
provided by the platforms.
And I would encourage
you to work closely
with the IP protection teams
of those major online
platforms likeTaoBoa, Alibaba and Amazon.
I know they have
a very big in-house team
working on IP protection.
And they will be very helpful for you
to identify those major dealers
on the platforms.
And then you can work offline
on investigation and enforcement
with such a strategy.
I believe you can have
a very effective online
protection program
without spending a lot of money.
I noticed that there are
a lot of questions have been asked
by the audience,
so I better stop now and leave the time
for the audience
to ask questions and for the speakers
to answer those questions.
That's it for me, thank you.
Jason, thank you so much
and thank you also.
Dan and Anna, for your very insightful
presentations, very much
appreciate you taking the time today
to walk our participants
in through the process of notice
and takedown
through engagement efforts
you've... you've undertaken
and also how they can prioritize
their notice and takedown efforts.
I'm going to start off with a question
that's it's often on
top of a lot of folks minds.
In view of the recent pandemic,
the COVID 19 pandemic has has
changed the way that a lot
of legitimate businesses
are conducting business,
and it's also had
a similar impact
to illegitimate business as well.
So I'm going to start with with
with Anna and Dan.
What changes
have you seen by counterfeiters
in the way they're conducting business
in view of COVID 19?
Is this going to be just a shift
in the types of products offered
or even their business methods?
Just love to hear
what what you're seeing on your side.
Thanks for a very good question.
Obviously, the pandemic,
it's been a challenging
time for everyone.
Top of mind for everyone
is a factor to our industry.
We were very grateful to be able
to continue to serve our customers
and selling partners
and brands during this time.
But we certainly saw increased attempts
to create account.
And so as I mentioned,
one of the changes, for example,
we had to make was to pivot
from the in-person seller verification
to the live video varification
as people couldn't meet anymore.
We saw also attempts to create
listing specific to the pandemic
misleading face mask.
For a lot of our brand owners
and right owners,
I do believe right
owners have been adjusting.
They've been monitoring these trends
and the situation
that they've been sharing
this infringing trends with us,
which in turn help us really
improve our proactive brand protection.
So while definitely the pandemic
has attracted bad actors
who have been trying to take advantage
of honest sellers
and brands. despite their attempts,
we continue to make strong progress
towards driving counterfeits down.
And I would
I would agree with that, you know,
we.
And when I say I agree with that,
I mean with the COVID focus, so
so obviously there has been
we've had an increased focus on
on COVID related listings,
personal protection equipment.
And so we we have developed
advanced algorithms
to help detect and
remove those listings and
and listings where.
Simply making claims of,
you know, cures or
as offering a benefit
or something that, to our knowledge,
is not scientifically proven
or is not accurate
to remove those listings to
to protect consumers.
And in addition to specific initiatives
that we've had with with
brand owners
of personal protection equipment,
we we have worked closely.
We were identified
as a strategic partner of
Homeland Security
and we received an award
from the IPR Center
for the COVID related work
that we've done so.
So
it is probably a very good example
actually of of how
we as a platform
need to to always
stay on top of current trends
and to be as effective as possible,
making sure that
that our resources
are targeted in a way
that most protects
rights holders and consumers.
Thank you, both.
Jason would love to hear your thoughts
as a practitioner,
as a person on the ground.
Have you seen changes
as a result of COVID 19 pandemic
in the way counterfeiters
are either marketing their goods,
selling their goods?
What they're focusing on
and anything that would be helpful
for SMEs who are listening today?
Yeah, it's a very obvious trend
that most of the counterfeiters
move from offline to online.
It's usually a situation
that if you go to a offline store,
for example, the golf shops
next to the Golf
a golf course,
you will find a lot
of counterfeits there.
And now it has changed
most of the counterfeiters
as they move from offline to online.
Some of them, they only sell online.
So it's very difficult
to actually find out,
find them out offline.
And oftentimes they
they move from retail
shops to a apartment,
probably their room, and
they don't have any inventory
and they gather water
from online buyer.
They was send the order
to the manufacturer,
the manufacturer's
ship, the products
directly from the factory
to the to the buyer.
So there is no
no way you can stop
the products in the middle.
Unlike,
unlike before, you can find
out counterfeiters
by monitoring the retail shops
or the wholesale markets.
No, that's all gone.
All gone online.
And would you be able
to provide any advice for
SMEs on how they can adjust
their their tactics to
to attack these,
this new method of counterfeiting
going purely online?
Right.
That's why I said it's very important
to have an online monitoring program
and then identify those
high profile sellers
or repeat offenders
through the online monitoring program
and then find out
the physical locations of those sellers
and to off-line investigation
and enforcement actions.
Jason, that's a great point,
and I think that that actually leads
well into the next question
that we have and that that's a question
I'm going to start with
with Dan and Anna again on this one.
What information is available
to a rights holder
once they have successfully
had a listing removed?
So if they want to go from
sort of from platform to platform,
once they received
a successful notice and takedown,
what information
can you share with them
to help them in their targeting?
I'll start on this one.
You know, honestly,
the information is pretty limited.
We need to comply with
all applicable laws,
including privacy laws.
And I think Jason made a good point
during his presentation.
There are,
and I should clarify as well.
So when rights holders are approaching
us saying we are
referring a case to PSB
and we're hoping for
for a criminal raid and prosecution.
You know, we're not sharing
sales information
with that, that rights holder.
They will work with PSB
in the formal request
will come from them
and we will provide that information
to law enforcement.
There is, as Jason said,
a formal process
within civil cases as well.
And I really agree with that,
something I did not mention.
But we,
particularly within the AACA,
we've done and filed
several dozen civil cases, often
sometimes in coordination
with rights holders.
And that is really to
put more pressure on
on the bad actors.
And and just so people know we are not
we as Alibaba are not litigating
the IP of another company.
So... the rights
holder that we're working with.
They are are filing lawsuits
to enforce their IP.
Our claims are more like
a breach of contract.
You know,
our terms of service are very clear
that the sale of
counterfeits is prohibited.
And so if you are often a civil case
can follow a criminal case.
And if you have a criminal conviction,
it should be a
relatively straightforward matter
to say, OK, there's been a
there's been a finding that
that counterfeits were sold.
And so that that is a violation
of our terms of service and
and tarnishes and
harms our brand as well.
Thank you.
And yes, I think
in terms of the information,
I shared earlier that
through different registers dashboard,
a brand owner has access
to the status of their notices. This
it could see also the notices
for the past 6 months
once the that there is
a successful successful
notice of take down.
I believe that is
and actually goes above that
they would require
only sharing information
with the brand.
one of the things we began displaying
also the US sellers business
name and addresses
on our Amazon seller profile page.
While this was required of sellers
in our store in countries
like Europe, Mexico and Japan.
This was a voluntary expansion
in the U.S., and we actually planned
to expand and display cell
contact information
to all of our stores worldwide.
We also partner closes closely with an
association branch association
where we do offer participant
insight into counterfeit
sales data of known infringer.
So that might be very helpful
for brands to leverage this information
and decide where
to focus their enforcement efforts.
And also, we also partner
with our CCU,
our counterfeit crimes unit, to provide
that information
and collaborate with brands
to pursue litigation
and law enforcement referrals
when that's in order to hold
bad actors accountable.
Jason, I'd love to
to hear your thoughts on maximizing
a targeting budget,
so we've heard about
what information is available,
so Amazon will share
seller information... address.
How do you take that information
that's publicly available,
the information that will be shared
by the platforms and decide
who you want to focus on
when you're going through and even
doing notice and takedown.
Yeah, I was going to add to that,
it's hard to expect
different performers working together.
I think he's up to the brand owner
or they are service providers
to do the analysis on the information
the the
they were provided by those platforms.
And then when they see
those information, it's often time
that you will say when you seller
they sell not only on one platform,
but multiple platforms
and such targets
will be your key targets
for off-line investigation.
And very often when you
find out to the IP information
of one sellar and you cross,
check on the other platforms
, you will find out,
find out them on
those platforms as well.
For example, if I have a email address
or a cell phone number
and you check those email addresses
or cell phone number
on other platforms,
very often you will find them
on those platforms as well.
Because most of counterfeiters
they don't sell,
only one on one platform,
but the multiple ones.
No, I think that that makes sense,
so if you're looking to to target
you, you find one
and then look to see if they're
present on on other platforms.
So to kick it back to two Dan
and Anna one more time
when when somebody finds a seller
that's operating on multiple platforms,
even if they haven't yet
found counterfeit listings
on your platform for that seller,
how can they provide that
information to you sort of to
to have assistance
looking for counterfeits?
Just sort of to
to improve the ability to target.
Well, go ahead.
Oh, sorry,
I didn't mean to jump in, I'm sorry, I
I do think, you know, if
if a rights holder
is not finding any infringement
or any counterfeits on our platform,
I mean, I think it's
it would be hard for them,
frankly, to take action
against a particular seller,
even if they think
it may be the same seller
that they're reporting
on on another platform.
You know it.
You know, I think,
Jason, I think it was, it said earlier.
You know, there
there's sort of an evolution
or a little bit of cat and mouse.
I would
I would definitely encourage that.
Some extra attention
and time in detail
is spent on that to see if,
you know,
maybe it's the same behavior
that's being seen on
and on another platform.
It's just being disguised in a way
that that makes it
more difficult to detect.
I think that that would
be one suggestion,
and I'm sort of I'm sort of
sorry to go back,
but can I go back and dovetail off
of what Jason said just a moment ago?
Of course, please this.
This is supposed to be
an exchange here. Yes.
And you know, he
he said something
that was, I thought, really insightful
and it triggered for me.
So I mentioned the SME
advisory committee,
and this is a committee of small
and sometimes micro-sized
or family size businesses.
And these are all companies
that have had to learn.
They're all very smart.
They're all very hardworking
and very resourceful people,
and they've really had to learn how to
get results, you know,
and without a big budget and
and that every dollar really
is their dollar in a way.
So they're very thoughtful about
about how they may
invest that in their business
and try and make sure they
get a return on that.
And you know,
we were having a conversation about
kind of just like this, like,
how do you focus? You know what?
What are your priorities?
How do you how do you decide where
to spend your enforcement budget?
And it was very interesting to me.
You know, some of the SMEs
had relatively expensive
products to manufacture.
And so there were relatively few
infringers or counterfeiters
that they were finding.
And so they felt like
an online enforcement
effort could be very effective
and could really harm their sales
and drive them away.
There were others
who had very inexpensive products,
and they were really focusing their
their budgets more on seizures.
You know, working with customs
and particularly,
you know, container seizures,
they may have a large volume
of their products,
and they felt like that was probably
the most effective way
for them to to pursue counterfeits
of their products.
And then, you know,
one of the most interesting
comments was someone who
has done business
in China for a long
time, as manufacturing
has been in China for four decades.
And, you know, he
often will take a business
approach to things
know if he is finding
counterfeits, you know,
he will often call
the the the the manager in the factory
that he's worked with.
And he's developed these relationships
and they've done business together
for a very long time
and sometimes he will pursue it on
his first call is to a business person
to help try and see
if they can help
him understand, you know,
what's happening
and how this is coming about.
And so I guess to that extent,
I would really encourage people
thinking about how to have
an effective budget is really
even think about the the,
you know, your products like, you know,
what are they composed of, you know,
where would be the most
effective way to enforce it?
And a do you have
anything you'd like to to add?
Sure, I was just going back to
like what Jason said about, you know,
then it is hard to find a seller,
even if you have the information
and determine whether a seller
is active on another platform.
But that's why you know, an Amazon
like we support of
more robust information sharing
when it comes to pursuing bad actors.
We don't see other
platforms, our competitor.
We're talking about sharing information
specific to bad actors.
And, you know, so we're continued,
we will continue to expand initiative
to share this information
about online marketplaces.
We think that will be really important
to expand everyone's visibility,
allow us to alert
maybe even one another and take action.
So one of the example that
we support and help of the National
Intellectual Property
Rights Coordination
Center, the FBR Center, we've worked
with a small group
of other online marketplaces
to create a data exchange
to a third party vendor.
So what
We are sharing information
about counterfeiters
that we each locked
previously from our store
and trying to understand
what's the potential
value of these data.
So the results are encouraging,
but obviously looking
forward to continuing
to work on this initiative
in 2022.
That's that's excellent.
Thank you for touching on that.
We're very happy to hear that
the platforms are talking to each other
sharing information.
The IPR center has done
an excellent job in
bringing various groups together.
one of the shifts that rights holders
and we've been hearing from platforms
as well is the shift to live streaming,
social commerce , advertising of goods
and then ghost listing
on the platforms.
Could you touch briefly on
how big of a problem is this?
Is it something that brand owners
should be concerned with?
And are there any
solutions for ghost listings?
Again, it can open that up to
anyone who wants to chime in first.
Yeah, maybe I should go first
because I don't have an answer
to your question,
but it's a big problem.
It's a big challenge for brand owners
and for practitioners
as well to identify
counterfeiters on the
streamlined platforms.
There is no listings
you can take down
because they sell products,
you know, in one hour and then go away.
So it's very difficult
to secure evidence to go after them.
To be honest, I don't have any good
solution to a problem is a new problem.
I think we need to work out a solution.
Yes, I would add
that we have certainly seen
some insight in
to this emerging risk,
you know, abuse of by contract
involving social media
platforms specifically.
You may be familiar with the case
the counterfeit crime unit filed
last year against
these social influencer
in the sellers.
The social influencer
and the sellers were working together
to sell counterfeit items
out of the store,
and they were promoting
counterfeit products
on forums like Instagram, TikTok.
But the way they were doing
it was quite brazen
because they were posting these
side by side photo
of like a generic product
so non-branded
and then a luxury counterfeit product.
And the task beneath said, Order this.
Get this.
And so the the order,
this was obviously referring
to the generic product.
It was falsely advertised on Amazon.
And to get this, refer
to the counterfeit luxury car
that you get once
you bought the generic product.
So, you know, by posting
this generic product on our platform,
they were
trying to evade our protection.
So they didn't, you know,
they were nothing
we could really pick up on to determine
that was a luxury product.
And you know, there was a silver lining
because the defendant social influencer
had to explain that
they had to resort to the use of this
so-called hidden links
in order to prevent Amazon from
taking down the products
and the orders being canceled.
Well, why that give us
a little bit of a smart idea
that our proactive tools
are working is definitely constitute
a challenge.
And because counterfeit
remains a very serious
business and problem.
And I guess I really agree
with both Jason and Anna.
You know,
I think the points
they made were very good.
I would,
you know, I think
one thing that I would note
is, you know, live
streaming has is not
something that's new
in terms of a way to to offer a product
so you can have.
So, so there are live streaming.
It's just a very,
I guess, a very traditional
product listing, right?
It's not on a third party website.
It's someone can be an influencer
who's just, you know,
just showing a product demonstrating,
you know, demoing the product.
And, you know,
those can just be reported.
You know,
if it turns out that someone is
is demoing a counterfeit product
that can be reported
just like any other other product.
If if it's a scenario where
you know there's a third party site
that is providing information
and like Anna said,
you know, from from
our marketplace perspective
, it looks very benign.
You know, there's really nothing there
to indicate that it's
a problematic listing,
but there's evidence
that it is in fact,
a problematic listing elsewhere
that also can be reported.
Just gather that information
and make that a part
of your takedown request.
It did,
because our teams won't even, you know,
it won't make any sense.
They'll think it's a mistake.
You know, its product A is listed in.
Product B
is what's being complained about,
but if you can provide them
with that information
to help them understand.
Why it is that actually
Part B is being offered then
then they can can accept
that listing.
Thank you, and we're
just about out of time,
I want to point out that
we had a bunch of great
questions come in.
We would ask that
you send them to the
AskChinaIP@uspto.gov
email address.
We'll make sure that
they are passed along.
So AskChinaIP@uspto.gov.
Please send us those
questions through email.
There have been some
requests for slides.
If you want to request
slides, please email us.
We'll put you in touch
with the presenters directly.
And with that,
thank you to our panelists very much.
Appreciate this, this enlightening Q&A,
and I'm going to pass it back
over to Mike Mangelson
for some closing remarks.
Thanks, David, and a special
thanks to all of our expert guests
that were with us Anna, Dan and Jason.
We appreciate all
the valuable insight
that you provided
to our audience today.
I think everyone was,
you know, learned a lot from the
from the presentations
and your experience
that you shared with us today.
And I think it was also obvious
as we talk through this discussion
that this is only kind
of part of the solution
that we talked about today.
And so it's very important
for everybody to
to participate in the
next event on December second,
when we're going to talk
more about the offline,
you know, kind of actions
and things that can be done.
And maybe we'll get more pictures
like Jason said of raids happening.
That's always fun to see.
See those pictures.
But I should also mention that
on some of you sent in questions
through the chat function.
Unfortunately, on this WebEx,
once the program is over,
those will disappear. So
I think what David mentioned,
make sure that you
send those questions.
If they weren't addressed in our
our discussion today,
make sure you send that to the
AskChinaIP@USPTO.gov,
because then we'll follow up
with those those questions.
So again, appreciate
for all of your everyone's
participation today.
I should also mention that we do
quarterly updates on new legislation
coming out of China and some,
you know, highlights certain cases.
Every quarter,
we just held one in September
and let me see if I can.
OK.
December 16th is our next one,
so we'll have our event
on December second
and then make sure you
mark your calendars for December 16th
when we'll have our quarterly update
and talk about some
of the new legislation
and things that are
coming out of China.
So again, thank you
everyone for your participation,
thanks to our guests,
and we'll see you next time.
Thank you.
Thanks very much for the opportunity.