Counterfeit, pirated goods costing U.S. billions

By Georgina Coolidge

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Experts from the automotive, pharmaceutical, and product safety industries told a U.S. Senate panel on Tuesday that counterfeit and pirated goods cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and jeopardize the safety of consumers.

Intellectual property theft robs the U.S. economy of at least $200 billion and 750,000 jobs every year, according to Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that is probing the issue.

"A variety of counterfeit products enter the stream of commerce everyday, many posing unsuspectedly serious fire and electrical hazards that endanger the American public," Brian Monks, vice president of anti-counterfeiting for Underwriters Laboratories Inc, told a hearing by the panel. The privately-owned company independently certifies more than 19,000 different types of products and materials each year.

Monks said when his company's certification mark is counterfeited, it leaves "consumers with a false sense of security" about the safety of the products.

Mike Rose, vice president of supply chain technologies for drug maker Johnson & Johnson, called for eliminating a confusing patchwork of state laws that require companies to track the "chain of custody" of their products and replacing them with one overarching federal policy.

"The federal government can and should take the lead in establishing a single federal standard for electronic pedigree," Rose said.

Leahy and a committee Republican, Orrin Hatch of Utah, are working on Senate bills to protect U.S. intellectual property.

In May, the U.S. House approved legislation that would boost funding for the Justice Department and the Patent and Trademark Office, among others, to enforce intellectual property laws. The bill would cost about $435 billion over five years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.