Vidal Llerenas, Director General of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI), disclosed in a radio interview on 30 September that IMPI has signed a co-operation arrangement with Alibaba to take down listings of illegal goods, and said the measure will be extended to e-commerce platforms such as Mercado Libre, Amazon and Coppel in order to speed up the detection and removal of counterfeit products online. According to media reports of the same day, the signatory is AliExpress, the Alibaba group's cross-border platform, and the document is a memorandum of understanding: the parties exchange information to bring about the swift removal of listings that allegedly infringe the intellectual property rights of Mexican companies, the platform applies seller sanctions and buyer protection measures in co-ordination with IMPI, and they will explore joint action against repeat sellers of counterfeits.
The memorandum runs for an initial 1 year and renews automatically for 2 more years. Llerenas added that IMPI will continue co-ordinated operations with federal forces to seize and destroy illegal products, and that working with the private sector makes it possible to use companies' intelligence against informal trade both in physical premises and on internet portals.
For brand owners this suggests that online anti-counterfeiting in Mexico may move further from traditional administrative enforcement towards rapid co-operation between the IP authority and platforms.
It should be noted, however, that this is an enforcement direction disclosed by the head of the office and a memorandum with a single platform, not a new law or administrative rule and not a complaint procedure already open to all rights holders, and no formal document has yet been seen for the other platforms.
J&C recommends that rights holders with brand protection needs in Mexico get the basics in place first: confirm that their marks are validly registered with IMPI and match their brand registry details on the platforms, and prepare templates of infringement leads and evidence; for now, rely on each platform's existing IP complaint channel and IMPI's administrative enforcement while watching whether documents are signed with Mercado Libre, Amazon and Coppel and whether rules for rights holders are published; cross-border sellers should review their listings and authorisation chains in advance.
Source: www.imagenradio.com.mx | www.cronista.com
