The problem now accounts for 2.5 percent of world trade - digitalization is casting its shadow

The global problem of product and brand piracy is expanding, not least due to increasing digitalization.

International trade in counterfeit and pirated goods has recently added up to around 2.5 percent of world trade, reaching a total value of 338 billion euros, according to the Cologne Institute for the German Economy ( IW Cologne ).

500,000 jobs gone in Germany

According to the current study “ Germany’s economic damage caused by product and brand piracy ”, one in ten companies in Germany has fallen victim to product and brand piracy at least once in the past five years.

The resulting figures make the problem clear: product and brand piracy caused damage to the German economy amounting to 54.5 billion euros. As a result, the German economy has lost around 500,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

According to the Cologne experts, companies in particular become the focus of product pirates the more innovative, larger, more international and the closer to industry they are.

The perpetrators of the associated intellectual property rights violations can primarily be found abroad, particularly in China and Eastern Europe. Two thirds of all companies affected by product and brand piracy had copyrights violated, but often also industrial property rights such as patents and utility models, according to the current survey.

Article image: Shutterstock / By donfiore
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )