World Anticounterfeiting Day

This coming 2 June is World Anticounterfeiting Day in a number of countries around the world. To mark the occasion, for the fifth consecutive year the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office and the National Brand Owners' Association are holding, in cooperation with the Finance Ministry and the various national Police Forces, a special day to raise awareness and sensitize the citizenry about the adverse repercussions caused by the manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods.

This year's event will take place in the city of Vigo. The choice of city is far from arbitrary but rather is the upshot of a police anticounterfeiting and antipiracy operation carried out at Vigo's "A Piedra" market in October 2014. And that's not all. Vigo and its market, famous for selling counterfeit goods, merited a mention on the US Trade Representative's international blacklist in February 2014, which specifically noted the city's status as a port of call for many cruise lines and the market's operation "under the supervision and control of the municipal government".

The choice of Vigo as the city in Spain to hold World Anticounterfeiting Day, then, could not be more apt. One would hope that holding World Anticounterfeiting Day there will indeed help open the eyes of local government officials to the need to combat this type of criminal activity more effectively to take their city off this shameful blacklist.

Author: Juan José Caselles and Transi Ruiz

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