May 31, 2013
To: Secretariat of Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, Cabinet Secretariat
Council for Intellectual Property Protection on Internet (CIPP)
CIPP Report for FY 2012
As you have already known as a participant, since FY 2005, the CIPP has beencommitted to the collaborative activities on the private-sector level by inviting the Secretariatof Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, Cabinet Secretariat, National Police Agency,
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications,
Agency for Cultural Affairs, and Japan Patent Office as observers in order to solve theproblem of the distribution of intellectual property rights (IPR) infringing goods arising fromInternet auctions.
We hope this report will help you plan IPR protection policies for FY 2013 as it represents
a consensus of right holders (individuals and organizations) and Internet auction operators.
[Overview]
1. Report of the Effectiveness Verification Committee
We confirmed that the percentage of auctioned infringing goods had remained at a low
level as a result of the implementation of certain measures including voluntary patrols byauction operators and removals upon notice from right holders.
2. Report of the Guidelines Committee
In addition to the verification of the guidelines revised in FY2011, we examined whether
the guidelines should be revised and exchanged views on the situation of infringing
goods these days.

1/8

1. Report of the Effectiveness Verification Committee(1) Effectiveness Verification
As usual, we set up the “Effectiveness Verification Committee” consisting of theindividuals who were actually in charge of removal requests and voluntary removals. Thisyear, as in past years, auctioned items were divided into two groups for carrying out theverification: (i) auctioned items that were judged as infringing upon a trademark or copyrightbased on their on-screen text or graphics, and would allow right holders to request auction
operators to suspend them (Table 1), and (ii) auctioned items that were judged as having ahigh probability of being infringing goods as a result of purchase and appraisal based on
various pieces of information, even though there were no direct grounds in the posted
information that would allow auction operators to remove such goods (Table 2).
The effectiveness verification this year allowed some right holders, who could afford it,
to perform verification more than once during the period. Accordingly, it is expected that theverification process will find numbers that are closer to our actual perception. This year's
verification was governed by the guidelines revised in 2011. Other details of theimplementation overview are as indicated in Annex 1.
The targets of the verification were Group 1 (three member companies; see the figure
below for the definitions of the groups) and Group 2 (two member companies). Since theservice categorized as Group 3 (one non-member company) in the past was terminated,
there is no target in that group this year. The non-member company consistently had an
extremely high percentage of infringing goods since the beginning of the effectivenessverification by the CIPP and, according to a source, was subject to a criminal penalty, which
we can easily imagine contributed to the termination of the service.
[Figure 1: Definitions and Descriptions of Groups]

Percentage of auctioned
items that right holders(organizations) deemed
had a high probability of
being infringing goods froman objective viewpoint
although the requirements
specified in the Guidelines
were not met

Group 2

Group 3

Low in % of infringementand declining inprobability

High in both % of
infringement andprobabilityGroup 1
Low in both % of
infringement andProbability

The relevant service wasterminated

Percentage of auctioned IPR-infringing
goods meeting the requirements
specified in the guidelines
2/8

(2) Verification Results
Table 1% of infringing
goodsGroup 1
Copyright

2010

2011

2012

# of
# of
# of% of% of% of
verifiedverifiedverifiedinfringement
infringement
infringement
items
items
items
9068
0.77%
9007
0.90%
9025
0.11%

Group 21611.86%

290.00%73

1.37%Group 3550.00%450.00%――Group 1

3019

0.43%

4517

0.42%

7388

1.31%

Trademark Group 2

242

1.65%

567

3.00%

277

5.05%

Group 3300

84.33%

400

99.25%――

Group 1

12087

0.69%

13524

0.74%

16593

0.64%

Group 2

403

1.74%

596

2.85%

350

4.29%

Group 3355

71.27%

404

98.76%

―

―

Total

Table 2% of goods withhigh probabilityGroup 1
Copyright

2010

2011

2012

# of
# of
# of
% of
% of
% of
verifiedverifiedverifiedprobability
probability
probability
items
items
items
9068
1.61%
9007
0.28%
9025
0.18%

Group 2

161

0.62%

29

27.59%

7324.66%

Group 3

55

9.09%

4

25.00%――Group 1

3019

0.36%

4517

0.11%

7388

0.07%

Trademark Group 2242

17.36%

567

5.11%

277

3.97%

Group 3300

15.33%

400

0.00%

――

Group 1

12087

1.30%

13938

0.24%

16593

0.13%

Group 2403

10.67%

596

5.70%

350

8.29%

Group 3355

14.37%

404

0.25%――Total

3/8

Table 3: Total ― % of Infringing Goods

Group 1Group 22010

2011

2012

Table 4: Total ― % of Goods with High ProbabilityGroup 1Group 2201020114/8

2012

(3) Analysis of Verification Results
A. Copyright-related Auctioned Items (Tables 1 and 2)
Group 1 slightly decreased from average to around 0.1%. Similarly, the percentage ofitems with a high probability slightly decreased. The number of auctioned copyrighted
works in Group 2 is so limited that the percentage changes significantly even when theactual count fluctuates by only a few. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether we should
perform an analysis in this situation.
B. Trademark-related Auctioned Items (Tables 1 and 2)
Group 1 remained around 1% although a slight increase in number was observed. InGroup 2, the percentage of auctioned infringing goods was around 5%, showing a slightly
increasing trend. The items with a high probability in Group 2 slightly decreased. It is
expected to improve the situation to the same degree as the last fiscal year by reviewing
and reinforcing voluntary patrols through reaffirming the trend of infringing goods orotherwise. In general, however, it remains at a low percentage, basically.
C. Overall Trends (Tables 3 and 4)
Group 1, which is taking proactive action against IPR-infringing goods, remains stabilized
at a lower level (around 1%) in general as a result of further improvement in measuresfrom the last year. The number in Group 2 is as stated in Section B because it is mostly
comprised of auctioned items that are related to trademarks.
2. Report from Guidelines Committee
The Guidelines Committee was set up again this year as a venue for sharing information
to address new auctioning tricks as well as to check the operation status of “Guidelines for
the Prevention of Distribution of Internet IPR Infringing Goods,” which were revised inFY2011.
Although it is confirmed that the newly revised guidelines have no particular defects, wemutually confirmed that the Guidelines Committee is helpful for further strengthening
cooperation among right holders and operators and for taking swift and reliable action
because the tricks used by those who auction IPR-infringing goods change on a daily basis.
The Guidelines Committee has facilitated the exchange of specific views and discussions
among interested parties concerning, not only guidelines, trends in infringing goods andsimilar topics, but also trivial matters inside and outside the Guidelines Committee.

5/8

3. Summary
As stated above, we successfully reduced the percentage of infringing goods in Group 1
this fiscal year again by promoting a “Japanese Approach” in which both right holders andoperators respect each other’s positions and collaboratively stand up against infringers. In
the next fiscal year it is scheduled to discuss measures to take against rights infringement in
shopping malls in order to specifically expand the scope of our efforts.
We would appreciate it if the government would introduce CIPP’s approach, which hasresults unlike any other in the world, to other countries, and help the approach become
recognized as the de facto standard of measures against IPR-infringing goods on theInternet.

6/8

Statistical Data (Provisional Values)■ Overall Auctioned Items
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Yahoo! Auction

1,817

2,250

2,212

2,512

2,631

Rakuten Auction

107

205

284

319

317

Bidders

537

638

766

785

888

MOBAOKU

334

364

451

432

367

In units of ten thousand.
The figures on Yahoo! Auction, Rakuten Auction and MOBAOKU represent their daily
average values in December while the figures on Bidders represent the total of auctioned
items as of the end of December.

■ Voluntary Removals
20082009

2010

2011

2012

Copyright

524,802

29,20238,33878,052

62,694

Trademark52,801

180,253

74,025

139,792

233,273

Total

577,603

209,455

112,363

217,844295,967■ Removal Requests from Right Holders
Directed to: Yahoo! Auction, Rakuten Auction, Bidders Auction, MOBAOKU, and girls
auction (total of five auctions)(Note that girls auction was added in December 2007.)

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Copyright

294

6,542

4,826

2,601

754

Trademark46,747

34,12940,20071,64454,428

Total

47,041

40,67145,026

74,24555,182* The figures on removal requests from right holders include the cases where individual
auctioned items or IDs of the sellers were suspended.
* Since some right holders change target auction sites to monitor infringing goods each year
and the number of removal requests from right holders depends on the target auction site
chosen, it is difficult to simply compare the figures year by year.
* The number of copyright-related removal requests increased during 2009 because rightholders intensively made removal requests as infringing goods were auctioned on arecurring basis in certain contents. Accordingly, a similar tendency is observed. The samegoes for the number of removal requests based on trademark rights during 2011.

7/8

Principles of the Japanese Approach
1. Both parties (right holders and auction operators) shall be aware that they should
fully respect each other’s positions and then make collaborative efforts in standing
up against their common enemies, that is, infringers, in order to protect not only theirown interest but also interest of consumers among others.
2. Right holders shall be aware that they should enforce their own rights, which are notautomatically protected.
3. Auction operators shall be aware that they should make active efforts to protect
intellectual property rights for sound development of the Internet.
4. Both parties shall be aware in the course of the promotion of countermeasures thatthey should agree on the equal importance of the protection of intellectual property
rights and the securement of users’ freedom for business and secrecy ofcommunication, and that they should take actions not to undermine the value of bothaspects.

8/8