The Alibaba Group has complained about the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) inclusion of the Taobao marketplace in its latest "notorious markets" list.
The Chinese e-commerce giant said the inclusion ignores the action Alibaba has taken against counterfeiters in recent years.
“In 2016 alone, we proactively removed more than double the number of infringing product listings than in 2015. It is, therefore, unreasonable for the USTR to have concluded that Alibaba is less effective in anti-counterfeiting than when it reviewed our efforts in 2015 and when it removed us from its list four years ago,” the company said in a statement.
The findings of USTR’s special review into notorious markets highlights specific physical and online markets around the world that are reported to be engaging in and facilitating substantial copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting.
“Tens of millions of American jobs and several trillion dollars of our gross domestic product rely on American creative and innovative industries,” said Ambassador Michael Froman in a news release. “The marketplaces, tactics, and schemes that undermine and threaten America’s creative industries change quickly and require our constant attention.”
He added that the 2016 List underscores the need for accountable governments everywhere to take on these forms of piracy and counterfeiting at every stage of the global supply chain to prevent final products that put health and safety of end-consumers at risk.
The USTR report flagged down Taobao “due to the large volume of allegedly counterfeit and pirated goods available and the challenges right holders experience in removing and preventing illicit sales and offers of such goods.”
The body did acknowledge that Taobao’s parent company, the Alibaba Group “has taken steps to address right holders concerns on Taobao,” such as establishing internal offices focused on IPR and appointing experienced officers to guide these efforts, as well as developing technology to prevent counterfeit sellers from re-opening storefronts.
“While recent steps set positive expectations for the future, current levels of reported counterfeiting and piracy are unacceptably high,” the report stated.
Alibaba said the report is inconsistent with the effective collaborative approach the company has taken with brands in the fight against counterfeiting.
“We are very proud of our highly robust anti-counterfeiting programs and believe we have dedicated far more personnel, financial resources and advanced technologies toward protecting intellectual property than any other e-commerce company,” it said. “Despite this counterproductive action by the USTR, we remain fully committed to protecting the IP of rights holders, both through significant proactive measures and working with brand owners, to combat counterfeiting online and offline.”