SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Internet has made it easy to find and purchase items from almost anywhere in the world. With a high demand for well-known brands, many online vendors sell counterfeit products online, infringing on various trademark holder’s rights and revenues.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) San Juan Field Operations officers and import specialists seized this past weekend various courier consignments that contained counterfeit speakers, car beepers, iPhone parts, cell phone front screens, USB cables and writs-watches.
Various consignments inspected by CBP officers at the San Juan Air Cargo facility, revealed products that infringed the intellectual property rights of Dr. Dre beats, Pandora, Samsung, BMW, Belkin and Disney trademarks. The products were shipped from vendors in China and Hong Kong.
“The trade in these illegitimate goods is associated with smuggling and other criminal activities, and often funds criminal enterprises”, stated Area Port Director Juan Hurtado. “Protecting intellectual property rights (IPR) remains a CBP priority trade issue.”
Consumers seek and purchase particular brands of products, believing that such brands have an intrinsic guarantee of their quality. Without a brand to protect, counterfeiters just seek to produce superficial quality products and take advantage of the loyalty that consumers have for a branded product. Poor quality products end up destroying the reputation of the copied brand, when it becomes impossible to distinguish the real product from a counterfeit.
CBP protects businesses and consumers every day through an aggressive IPR enforcement program. CBP targets and seizes imports of counterfeit and pirated goods, and enforces exclusion orders on patent-infringing and other IPR goods.
To effectively enforce intellectual property rights, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) relies heavily on the cooperation of the owners of these rights. If your intellectual property is registered with the Patent and Trademark Office, the Copyright Office or the subject of a United States International Trade Commission exclusion order, you will want to inform CBP.
To record your Intellectual Property Rights with CBP please visit e-Recordation. Trade names must be recorded with CBP in order for us to determine trade name infringements.
If you are aware of or suspect a company or individual of infringing your trademark or copyright, please report the trade violation to e-Allegations Submission and provide the following information to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). You may also report trade violations by calling 1-800-BE-ALERT.
View more about the IPR Center and CBP’s border security mission at our nation’s ports of entry.