Footwear News Talks About Fakes

Footwear News (one of my favorite trade publications) has done an interesting article about counterfeits, fakes, knockoffs and other harmful items in the fashion industry. Some of the statistics from the article were definitely an indicator that these items are not going away and that this problem needs to be addressed:

"According to U.S. Customs, for the first half of the fiscal year started Oct. 1, 2007, 36 percent of all intellectual property rights seizures was footwear, worth an estimated $40.3 million. Of those seizures, 96 percent came from China. For all of fiscal 2007, 40 percent of the seizures was footwear, up from $63.4 million in 2006 to $78 million.

While counterfeiters are getting craftier, customs officials are working diligently to catch counterfeit goods before they hit the streets. Earlier this month, officials announced at a news conference held by Todd Hoffman, U.S. Customs director at the Los Angeles-Long Beach Seaport, that the agency had a record-breaking year of increases in seized goods. There was a 50 percent rise in seizures over fiscal-year 2007, an increase in value of 148 percent. The Los Angeles-Long Beach customs office seized 357 shipments of counterfeit and pirated goods, with a domestic value of $71.4 million. According to the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition, counterfeiting costs U.S. businesses $200 billion to $250 billion annually and is directly responsible for the loss of more than 750,000 American jobs.

Among the factors that the agency said contributed to the record seizures were new partnerships formed among several agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Additionally, a joint working group was created between Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Recently, Footwear News spoke with David Brener, a 22-year customs veteran and the chief intellectual property rights operations branch officer in Washington, D.C., about the state of counterfeiting and what is being done to combat the problem."

A loss of 750,000 American jobs? If you want to read more of this article, I encourage that you check out the FN website link: http://www.footwearnews.com/site/article.php?id=1576