Amazon announced a joint operation with the National Intellectual
Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) on Tuesday, focused on
stopping counterfeit goods from entering the US. The Verge reports: The
partnership will rely on intelligence gathered from Amazon’s Counterfeit
Crimes Unit, logistics company DHL, and US Customs and Border Patrol
(CBP) to proactively stop the sale of counterfeit products. “Operation
Fulfilled Action” relies on Amazon’s dominant positioning as both a
distributor and marketplace for products. Because of the amount sold on
Amazon’s various storefronts, IPR Center and Amazon have shared
information previously, even collaborating on a crackdown on fraud
related to COVID-19. This new operation marks a more long-term
partnership, however. Prior to Amazon’s involvement, IPR Center’s focus
on “securing the global supply-chain” might be unfamiliar to the average
person, but you’ve actually seen a bit of the Center’s work before — the
government warning that plays before every DVD and Blu-ray was created by
the organization. As far as counterfeit products are concerned, Amazon
says it already investigated and removed potentially fraudulent
offenders. A partnership with these new agencies should allow the company
to go further and “stop counterfeits at the border, regardless of where
bad actors were intending to offer them” said Dharmesh Mehta, vice
president of customer trust and partner support at Amazon. …
