Congressman Blake Moore's Bipartisan Legislation to Halt Counterfeit Imports Passes Committee
WASHINGTON — Representatives Blake Moore (R-UT) and Brad Schneider (D-IL) introduced legislation to halt counterfeit and pirated imports into the United States. The bill changes how Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can share the packing and shipping information of suspected counterfeit products with key intellectual property rights holders, transportation carriers, and e-commerce platforms. This bill passed the Ways and Means Committee by a bipartisan vote of 40-0.
“The global economy is flush with threats from counterfeiters, IP thieves, and black-market traders," Rep. Moore said. "This bill will unlock real-time intelligence sharing between CBP and the private sector that will help shut down these networks and cut off the flow of counterfeit products before they reach American shores. This will safeguard American businesses and protect our citizens from dangerous counterfeit goods. I’m thrilled that this bill has generated strong bipartisan support and unanimously passed through the Ways and Means Committee today."
“The United States has well-established and enforceable property rights that have allowed innovation and entrepreneurship to flourish in our country,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08). “Unfortunately, there are bad actors that will try to exploit any loophole in our laws – including gaps in our trade enforcement – to steal American intellectual property. Thanks to Representative Moore’s leadership, the Ways and Means Committee is advancing solutions that will improve coordination between law enforcement and the private sector to help stem the tide of IP theft being perpetrated across our nation’s borders.”
“Counterfeit goods undercut American businesses, threaten jobs, and endanger public safety. I’m proud to join my colleague on the Ways and Means Committee Rep. Blake Moore and Sens. Chuck Grassley and Maggie Hassan in introducing this legislation that enhances CBP’s ability to disrupt counterfeit trafficking networks and better safeguards our economy and communities,” Rep. Schneider said.
“Stopping counterfeits at the border demands a coordinated and collaborative approach,” said Travis Johnson, Vice President of the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition. “This commonsense legislation enhances CBP’s ability to leverage private sector expertise and intelligence, and we applaud the sponsors for their efforts to protect consumers and legitimate businesses from the harms caused by those illicit imports.”
“We are thankful for Chairman Grassley’s efforts to call for more information sharing for rights holders to quickly and effectively identify counterfeit and illicit products. Counterfeit goods do not just represent economic losses, lost sales, and lost jobs through brand identity theft; the digital devalue chain of counterfeits exposes consumers and workers to a multitude of dangers that pose real product safety hazards for consumers, workers, and the environment,” said Steve Lamar, President and CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear Association.
Background:
While CBP’s job is to identify counterfeit products at U.S. ports of entry and flag for businesses when they suspect a particular shipment might be counterfeit or pirated, they are currently only allowed to provide limited information about shipments in question. CBP is not permitted to share packing materials (such as the external container in which goods are shipped), images, labels, invoices, or packing slips that identify the product’s country of origin with key parties such as property rights holders, carriers like DHL, UPS, or FedEx, and e-commerce platforms like Etsy and Amazon.
This bill would provide explicit authority for CBP to share all relevant information with companies, carriers, and platforms when a shipment in question contains suspected counterfeit or pirated products. The bill also broadens the range of parties with whom CBP can disclose such information, including shipping companies and e-commerce sites where the product in question may be sold.
Under this bill, CBP would be allowed to share:
- Shipping labels and tracking numbers
- Sender and recipient addresses
- Invoices and manifests
- Outer packaging images, like courier tape, weight notations, and box markings
- Container-level packaging information and data
This means CBP could flag patterns of behaviors such as:
- Repeat senders across multiple shipments
- “Drop addresses” used by organized counterfeiters
- Common entry ports or air routes
Example: A counterfeit electronics shipment from Shenzhen repeatedly enters via the Port of Los Angeles using the same fake return address and tracking patterns. With this bill, CBP can share these patterns with carriers like UPS, DHL, and FedEx to intercept future parcels earlier in the pipeline.
The Moore-Schneider bill is supported by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, American Apparel & Footwear Association, Automotive Anti-Counterfeiting Council, Baby Safety Alliance, International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, International Trademark Association, Partnership for Safe Medicines, Pharmaceutical Security Institute, and Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade.
You can read the full bill here and on Congress.gov.
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