PIPCU
M
ake your way down Bishopsgate in central London and you will see several ominous-looking police
vans guarding the entrance to the City of London Police. It is here where offi cers gather intelligence to keep the streets safe from crime.
But within the building, a team of offi cers are also working on a form of crime-prevention that you might not normally expect of a police force: cutting down on, and arresting those who commit, IP abuse.
T e Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has been running since September 2013. Primarily targeting online infringement, the unit is being initially funded with £2.5 million ($4.2 million) worth of government money.
To those outside the industry, IP crime may seem a surprising thing for the police to be spending their time on. But, according to PIPCU’s head, detective chief inspector Andy Fyfe, the government has recognised “for some time” the need to tackle IP crime.
“Online IP crime, such as digital piracy as well as the sale of counterfeit goods, has long been a problem. T e government recognised that it really needed to do something about it,” Fyfe, who was a patent attorney before his police career, tells TBO during an interview at the unit’s headquarters on Bishopsgate.
“T e government thought the quickest way of doing this was to off er some money to the police so they could form a unit directly looking at this type of issue.
“OUR BPI
REPRESENTATIVE HAS ACCESS TO THE ORGANISATION’S INTELLIGENCE AND OBVIOUSLY HAS KNOWLEDGE OF THE FILM AND MUSIC
INDUSTRY AND THE
WAY IN WHICH ONLINE PIRACY HAPPENS.”
www.trademarksandbrandsonline.com
“T e case for running it was put forward by the City of London Police, as we have experience of running bespoke units dedicated to particular issues,” he says.
Since its establishment last year, PIPCU has made more than 20 arrests following raids and has shut down thousands of illegal websites. Although he is departing from the unit, Fyfe says he is proud of PIPCU’s achievements.
Adorning the walls of the offi ce are reports of some of PIPCU’s biggest scalps. “Arrests in counterfeit raids” and “PIPCU suspends 2,500 websites” are among the stand-out headlines from various press cuttings.
Trademarks & Brands Online Volume 3, Issue 3 23
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