Counterfeit goods are flowing into B.C. virtually unchecked by border officials, landing Canada on the United States’ blackest of blacklists for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.
As an example of the local proliferation, BIV tracked down a store in a Richmond mall where counterfeit consumers are offered whole catalogues of knock-off luxury bags for order, complete with phony serial numbers and certificates of authenticity.
In British Columbia, RCMP resources are focused on the highest risks of the black-market industry, such as potentially lethal fake mail-order Viagra and counterfeit operations that fund organized crime. That leaves companies largely to their own devices to manage infringements on intellectual property rights. And while most brands being copied locally belong to foreign multinationals, contributing to a popular sense that there are no local victims to this crime, some Metro Vancouver businesses are seeing counterfeits hurt their bottom line.