NCJ Number
208390
Date Published
October 2004
Length
80 pages
Annotation
This final report of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Task Force on Intellectual Property presents a series of recommendations on how the DOJ can strengthen efforts to combat intellectual property crimes.
Abstract
In March 2004, the DOJ’s Task Force on Intellectual Property was created to analyze existing intellectual property enforcement efforts by the DOJ and to propose improvements to those protection efforts. The working groups analyzed existing resources and suggested improvements in the areas of criminal enforcement, international cooperation, civil and antitrust enforcement, legislation, and prevention. Following a description of the problem and scope of intellectual property crimes, the report discusses the four major categories of intellectual property (copyrighted works, trademarks, trade secrets, and patents) and why protecting these categories of intellectual property is important. The report goes on to review DOJ’s current enforcement efforts toward controlling the global threat of intellectual property crime, including recent prosecutions and operations that were successful in dismantling criminal networks specializing in intellectual property theft. Finally, a series of recommendations are offered for ways in which the DOJ can expand its fights against intellectual property crimes. Criminal enforcement recommendations include the need to target large criminal organizations that commit intellectual property crimes and to increase FBI personnel assigned to search for digital evidence. International cooperation recommendations include the need to deploy an intellectual property law enforcement coordinator to Asia and Eastern Europe and the need to increase the use of informal contracts to gather evidence from foreign countries. The one civil enforcement recommendation urges the DOJ to support civil enforcement of intellectual property laws by the owners of intellectual property rights, while recommendations in the area of antitrust enforcement include the need to promote international cooperation on the application of antitrust laws to intellectual property rights. Appendixes