April 1, 2012
To: Secretariat of Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, Cabinet Secretariat
Council for Intellectual Property Protection on Internet (CIPP)
CIPP Report for FY 2011
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 2012 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 last year, we discussed whether or
not there is a need to revise the guidelines.

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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 the past years, auctioned items were divided into two groups to carry out
verification: (i) auctioned items which were judged as infringement of a trademark or
copyright based on their on-screen text or graphics and would allow right holders to makesuspension requests to auction operators (Table 1), and (ii) auctioned items which had ahigh probability of infringing goods as a result of purchase and appraisal based on various
pieces of information although there was no direct ground in the provided information
allowing auction operators to remove such goods (Table 2).
This year some right holders, who could afford, decided to perform verification morethan once during the period. The verification was carried out based on the new guidelines
revised in 2011. Details of the implementation overview are as indicated in Annex 1.
As in the previous years, the targets of the verification were, in addition to Group 1(three member companies; see the figure below for the definition of the groups), Group 2(two member companies) and Group 3 (one non-member company) that is inferred to takealmost no action against IP infringing goods.
[Figure 1: Definitions and Descriptions of Groups]

Percentage of auctioned
items which right holders(organizations) deemed
had a high probability ofinfringing goods from anobjective viewpoint
although the requirements
specified in the Guidelines
were not met

Group 2
Low in % of infringementand declining inprobabilityGroup 1
Low in both % of
infringement andProbabilityGroup 3High in both % of
infringement andprobability

As further action is taken,transition of stages goeson in this order

Percentage of auctioned
IPR-infringing goods meeting therequirements specified in theguidelines

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

20092010

2011

# of
# of
# of% of
% of% ofverifiedverifiedverifiedinfringement
infringementinfringement
items
items
items
7433
1.22%
9068
0.77%
9007
0.90%

Group 2380.00%

161

1.86%

29

0.00%

Group 3190.00%550.00%450.00%Group 1

4540

1.28%

3019

0.43%

4517

0.42%

Trademark Group 2

225

6.22%

242

1.65%

567

3.00%

Group 3451

69.62%

300

84.33%

400

99.25%

Group 1

11973

1.24%

12087

0.69%

13524

0.74%

Group 2

263

5.32%

403

1.74%

596

2.85%

Group 3470

66.81%

355

71.27%

404

98.76%

Total

Table 2% of goods withhigh probabilityGroup 1
Copyright

2009

2010

2011

# of
# of
# of% of% of% of
verifiedverifiedverifiedprobability
probability
probability
items
items
items
7433
0.93%
9068
1.61%
9007
0.28%

Group 238

26.32%

161

0.62%

29

27.59%

Group 3190.00%

55

9.09%

4

25.00%

Group 1

4540

0.24%

3019

0.36%

4517

0.11%

Trademark Group 2

225

4.89%

242

17.36%

567

5.11%

Group 3451

25.50%

300

15.33%

400

0.00%Group 1

11973

0.67%

12087

1.30%

13938

0.24%

Group 2

263

7.98%

403

10.67%

596

5.70%Group 3470

24.47%

355

14.37%

404

0.25%

Total

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Table 3: Total ― % of Infringing Goods
10.00%
9.00%
8.00%
7.00%
6.00%
5.00%

⼀群
Group 1

5.32%

Group 2
⼆群

4.00%
3.00%

1.74%

2.85%

2.00%
1.00%

1.24%
0.69%

0.00%
2009

2010

0.74%
2011

Table 4: Total ― % of Goods with HighProbability
12.00%
10.67%

10.00%
8.00%
7.98%
6.00%

5.70%

4.00%
2.00%

1.30%
0.67%

0.00%
2009

0.24%
2010

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2011

一群
Group 1
二群Group 2

(3) Analysis of Verification Results
A. Copyright-related Auctioned Items (Tables 1 and 2)
Group 1 was around 1% as usual. The numbers of auctioned copyrighted works inGroups 2 and 3 are so limited that their percentages significantly change as the actual
counts fluctuate by a few. Therefore, it is difficult to say that we should perform ananalysis in this situation.
B. Trademark-related Auctioned Items (Tables 1 and 2)
Group 1 was less than 1% as usual. Even in Group 2, the percentage of auctioned
infringing goods was 3% indicating a slight increase but still a healthy number. The
auctioned items with a high probability had been high in percentage last year but
significantly improved this year, showing efforts of the member companies. Since almost
all the goods were found to be infringing in Group 3, whose percentage of infringing
goods was nearly 100% and where auctioned items with a high probability were rather
decreasing.
C. Overall Trend (Tables 3 and 4)
Group 1 taking proactive actions against IPR-infringing goods partially shows an
extremely small increase but is stabilized at a lower level (around 1%) in general as in theprevious year. In terms of the numbers of Group 2, they slightly increased but thepercentage of auctioned infringing goods remained to be around 3% in the total of theCopyright and Trademark categories, indicating a favorable result. Since the number ofauctioned items with a high probability of infringement was half of the preceding year.
Therefore, further cleanup can be expected as we continue taking action. On the otherhand, approximately 99% of the auctioned items in Group 3 (non-member of the CIPP)
were infringing goods and it is year by year worsening rather than improving. (In thetables, it is unable to illustrate the changes because all the figures were more than 50%
as in the Trademark section.)
2. Report from Guidelines Committee
The Guidelines Committee was set up again this year as a venue for information sharing
to address new tricks for auctioning as well as to check how the “Guidelines for thePrevention of Distribution of Internet IPR Infringing Goods,” which had been revised lastyear, were operated.

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Although it is confirmed the newly revised guidelines have no specific defects, wereached the conclusion that we should hold a meeting of the Guidelines Committee again
next year in order to further strengthen the cooperation among right holders and operatorsand to take swift and reliable action because the tricks used by those who auction
IPR-infringing goods change on a daily basis. (For details, see Annex 2.)
3. Summary
As stated above, we successfully reduced the percentage of infringing goods in Group 1
this fiscal year as well and achieved numerical improvement in Group 2 year after year bypromoting the “Japanese Approach” in which both right holders and operators respect eachother’s positions and collaboratively stand up against infringers. As the Japan
Merchandising Rights Association joined at the end of the fiscal year, the CIPP’s policies
and effectiveness of its framework are widely recognized. Meanwhile, since operators werelately sued by sellers for removal of auctioned infringing goods, we are considering thatwhen operators have trouble with sellers, right holders and operators should actively
cooperate with each other and closely take specific measures based on relationships of trust
after 2012. We would like to make the CIPP’s approach more robust to address theIPR-infringing tricks that changes on a daily basis.
We appreciate that the government would introduce to other countries the CIPP’sapproach, whose outcome is unlike any other in the world, and help the approach berecognized as a de facto standard of measures against IPR-infringing goods on the Internet.

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Statistical Data (Provisional Values)■ Overall Auctioned Items
2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Yahoo! Auction

1,650

1,817

2,250

2,212

2512

Rakuten Auction

53107

205

284

319

Bidders

280

537

638

766

785

MOBAOKU

310

334

364

451

432

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
2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Copyright

187,90952,801

29,20238,33878052

Trademark748,416

524,802180,253

74,025139792

Total

936325577603209455112363217844■ 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.)

2007

200820092010

2011

Copyright

365

294

6542

4826

2601

Trademark

30907

46747

34129

40200

71644

Total

31272

47041

40671

45026

74245

* 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.

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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 values of bothaspects.

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