Taobao, China's largest consumer C2C shopping platform, signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) recently to curb the counterfeit goods sold online. It should be noted that the memorandum is an important result of a dozen of consultations between IACC and Taobao over one year.

Taobao has started the dialogue with IACC since 2012, seeking to reduce the counterfeit goods sold online. The sign of memorandum is a new breakthrough following the successful cross-industry cooperation with finance payment. The collaboration between Taobao and IACC includes utilizing available technologies to improve the efficiency of identifying and reporting fake goods sold online as well as assisting law enforcement agencies in stepping up following investigation to attack offline IPR infringement.

"The efforts in promoting cooperation have created a triple-win for our members, Taobao and online buyers," chairman of IACC said. John Spelich, vice president of Alibaba Group also expressed that they hoped Taobao could become an emblem for trust and value among the customers.

IACC, constituted by a cross section of business and industry with well-known international brands, engages in substantive dialogue with governments in the United States and abroad, providing law enforcement officials with information and training to identify counterfeit and pirated products as well as product security to prevent IPR infringement and improve IP enforcement standards. Taobao was established in 2003. As of June 2012, Taobao has housed over 800 million items information and 500 million registered users, ranking one of the top 20 high-traffic web-sites in the world. 

(China IP News)