Confidential Patents
In today’s globalized world, intellectual property is difficult to protect and laws are tough to enforce among distant, unidentifiable manufacturing hubs. Counterfeit goods and patent infringement have become common across the world.
The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which cooperates with several agencies to enforce intellectual property rights (IPR) by seizing counterfeit goods at the border, estimated that the MSRP value of these seizures totaled $1.35 billion in 2015.
The economic costs of this illicit trade spread far beyond imports to the United States. Countries like China have booming domestic markets for these counterfeit goods, making it difficult for authentic brands to maintain their reputable identities abroad and technological pioneers to protect their competitive edge overseas.
Furthermore, economic espionage is costing American companies hundreds of billions of dollars every year. The combination of IP infringement and theft destroys millions of U.S. jobs.
Foreign courts often have laws to protect American intellectual property, but they are rarely enforced without significant intervention from the effected companies. Successful foreign court outcomes depend on massive amounts of evidence brought forward by the company whose rights are in jeopardy.
