ALBANY, N.Y. – Property used in the trafficking of counterfeit goods or in trademark counterfeiting would be seized and forfeited under legislation proposed in the state Senate here.
“Trademark counterfeiting is a serious problem, which is reportedly getting worse,” said the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Frank Padavan (R., Queens). “The counterfeit-goods trade comprises the sale of so-called knockoffs of brand-name products as well as pirated intellectual property, including bootleg DVDs. It has been estimated that this illicit trade takes billions of dollars out of the state’s economy with an annual fiscal impact of over $2.6 billion in lost revenue.”
Technological advances have made counterfeiting easier, with computers and mass production equipment capable of producing large quantities of bootleg DVDs quickly, Padavan said.
Ted Potrikus, executive vice president of the Retail Council of New York State, said Padavan’s efforts to curtail counterfeit goods trafficking would “go a long way toward elevating this and all of the organized retail theft issues.”
Counterfeiting “costs the retail industry in lost sales, it costs the people who have the rights to that billions in lost revenue, as well,” Potrikus said. “You look at it and you think, who cares about the big companies, but it all comes back to us as consumers and the extra money that we have to pay.”
The bill does not yet have a sponsor in the state Assembly.