The United States and the European Union have agreed to join forces to fight soaring trade in counterfeited goods which the EU's trade chief said could be worth as much as 360 billion euros ($423 billion) a year.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said on Wednesday Brussels and Washington would set up "a focused and comprehensive co-operation process" to protect intellectual property rights, sharing information and planning joint action.
"ln doing so we will send a message to the rest of the world - we are heading towards zero tolerance of theft of our intellectual property," he told reporters.
"The issue is that the global trade in counterfeited goods now equals ... the entire total of transatlantic trade, Mandelson said. "Others need to change their behaviour, need to change their enforcement."
Neither Mandelson nor US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez identified any countries as the focus of the new push on pirated goods.
But Washington has previously said China needs to make progress in combating piracy and counterfeiting.
"This is clearly a government-wide effort and we are putting the full resources of the US federal government behind the subject of intellectual property rights and it starts at the top with our president," Gutierrez told Wednesday's news conference.
Mandelson said the EU and the United States were the world's two largest net importers of pirated and counterfeited goods.
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