Richard Branson endorses the City of London Police’s Intellectual Property IP Crime Directory on World IP Day

The City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit has launched an IP Crime Directory, a website that brings brands and law enforcement together to tackle the global threat from IP crime.

Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group Founder, said, “It’s essential that swift action is taken against criminals that commit intellectual property crime. In the last year, we have dealt with more than 130 instances of me being impersonated, fake pages, misleading ads and false endorsements.”

Disrupt IP crime

The initiative is designed to boost the ability of law enforcement, both in the UK and internationally, to work directly with owners of intellectual property to identify, tackle and disrupt intellectual property crime, estimated to be worth £1.3 trillion globally.

The website is a secure database for customs and police officers to help them identify counterfeit goods with the information uploaded by rights and brand holders.

Information such as packaging details and other identifiers for counterfeit goods will be held on the website. Details of prior cases and contact points for brands will bring law enforcement and business closer to ensure law enforcement has the tools to take action immediately.

The site will also enable those signed up to create alerts that could warn brands and law enforcement about the latest trends in intellectual property crime.

Detective Chief Superintendent Glenn Maleary, Head of the Economic Crime Directorate at the City of London Police, said, “The Intellectual Property Crime Directory will help bring more criminals to justice, reduce the amount of dangerous fake goods in circulation and give confidence to the consumer that what they are buying is the genuine product.”

The website will only be open to registered brands and trade bodies. For more information on how you can sign up please go to www.ipcrimedirectory.org