LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, L'Oreal SA and other French companies lose a combined US$10 billion a year to copyright, patent and trademark theft, a French official said, pointing to Chinese counterfeiters as major culprits.
France, which had 9.6 percent unemployment in November, loses 30,000 jobs a year because of counterfeiters, said Benoit Battistelli, commissioner of the National Institute for Industrial Property, the French patent office. Fake goods, including about 10 percent of French cosmetics, are valued as high as 300 billion euros (US$392 billion), he said.
"Counterfeiting isn't as risky but is more profitable than drug trafficking," Battistelli said in an interview while attending a Hong Kong conference on intellectual property rights.
"Counterfeiting is a major issue between China and France." Under pressure from trading partners such as the US, China set up a task force last year, headed by Vice Premier Wu Yi (吳儀), to step up the crackdown on counterfeiters. China said on Dec. 21 it would make theft of intellectual property punishable by as much as seven years.
China still isn't doing enough to enforce copyright and trademark laws, former US Commerce Secretary Donald Evans said during a visit to China this month before his tenure ended.
Copyright violations cost US companies as much as US$25 billion a year.
Piracy Curbs China is trying to curb piracy, Li Dongsheng, vice minister for State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said in an interview today at the Hong Kong conference. Rather than sue Chinese companies they suspect of piracy, foreign companies can appeal to the local branch of his agency for redress, Li said.
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China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
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