Introduction

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conservatively estimates that international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods in 2005 totalled approximately 200 billion USD.[1] By most accounts, the situation has only deteriorated since then. Worried by the commercial, health, safety and job impacts from such illicit trade, governments have undertaken an array of new initiatives to address the problem, including stepped-up legislative, administrative, and law enforcement activity; the initiation of dispute settlement proceedings in the World Trade ...