While the topic of identity protection is well known in the consumer world, in business, many forget that their company's identity is often more valuable. Businesses must protect their identities from individuals and organizations that are looking to use their hard-earned brand names for profit.

There are multiple forms of business identity theft, including:

• Gray market trade
• Counterfeiting of products
• Global copyright and trademark infringement
• Theft of intellectual property

There are many steps that you can take to ensure the security of your company's identity and brands. Below are five important steps that you can take:

1. Know that your copyrights and trademarks are valid only in the United States. If you do business internationally, register your marks and copyrights in those countries to help ensure security.
2. Give your products unique identifiers that you can track, like serial numbers that are only known internally.
3. Pick the manufacturers you work with carefully; ensure that you have all the data available before you decide on a supplier. Some examples include: customer history, credit reports, import history, etc.
4. Educate yourself on the resources that the U.S. government can provide including the Department of Commerce, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and United States Trademark Office. Many times, your trade lawyer may have additional information on Customs rulings, trade agreements, and other items to assist in your protection efforts.
5. Proactively protect your supply chain and your business identity by using trade data to research suspected counterfeiters and gray market trade cases.

Zepol has created a case study that details how one of our users, an international law firm, works to protect their clients' intellectual property, brands, and supply chains. Click here to read the case study.

Last Friday, we released our 2008 Bill of Lading data results illustrating trends in container traffic. Further information is detailed within our press release, “U.S. Customs Data shows Container Traffic Decline in the 4th Quarter”. Imports were down 4.7% for the year and 7.3% for the 4th quarter. Zepol uses the shipping records from U.S. Customs data to determine how many containerized imports were made during the year. Below is a graph showing a comparison between 2007 and 2008.

Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that they seized $272.7 million in counterfeit and pirated goods in 2008. While the figure is impressive, you have to wonder how much is still getting by the authorities. The good news is that it appears U.S. Customs is getting much better at identifying and taking action to seize shipments.

CBP Commissioner W. Ralph Basham stated the following in the press release, “CBP is improving the effectiveness of IPR enforcement by focusing on imports at high risk for counterfeiting and piracy, especially those that threaten the health, safety or security of the American people.”

The release specifically credits working with companies to identify and prosecute counterfeiters. Proactively monitoring your industry’s imports with U.S. Customs data is one of the ways that you can protect your brands’ intellectual property. To learn more about how Zepol's customers are using trade data to stop piracy, read our case study based on the experiences of our customers: “International Law Firms Discovering Keys to Cases”.

CBP stated that the top commodity seized was Footwear, accounting for 38% of IPR seizures. 81% of the value of the seized goods was from China. Below are the top 10 countries of origin and products seized in 2008:

Top Ten Countries of Origin of Seized Commodities:

1. China
2. India
3. Hong Kong
4. Taiwan
5. Korea
6. Dominican Republic
7. Pakistan
8. Vietnam
9. United Arab Emirates
10. Indonesia

Top Ten Commodities Seized:

1. Footwear
2. Handbags/Wallets/Backpacks
3. Pharmaceuticals
4. Wearing Apparel
5. Consumer Electronics/Electrical Articles
6. Sunglasses/Parts
7. Computers/Technology Components
8. Perfumes/Colognes
9. Cigarettes
10. Media

To read the full release, follow this link: Customs IPR Seizures.

With the New Year beginning, I have put together a list of 5 predictions for U.S. Trade Data and its users.

1. An increased need for Market Analysis and Competitive Intelligence

As the economy is expected to remain weak for at least the first half of 2009, companies from nearly every industry must take action to ensure they understand everything they can about their markets and competitors. In the next year, companies already using trade data will increase their data gathering activities and utilize the information even more to make the best decisions in a difficult economy.

2. More new users begin using trade data

More companies will turn to trade data to source new suppliers and learn more about their competitors. Smaller importers will have a greater need for trade data to compete on a global basis. In addition, with many companies struggling, others will look to take their current suppliers and secure robust, diversified supply chains for when the economy recovers. This will lead many companies to utilize trade data for the first time in order to meet their goals.

3. More users use multiple types of trade data

With more companies using trade data in their business decision-making processes, advanced users will begin integrating more data sources that are available from the U.S. government like combining U.S. Customs data and U.S. Census data to make even better decisions. While many users have already begun using additional sources of trade data, this practice will greatly increase.

4. Increased need for more powerful and flexible trade data tools

As more companies turn to trade data and increase their usage, they begin to realize that trade data tools that only spit back results cannot complete the analysis needed to make the decisions necessary in a global economy. Users will turn to trade data tools, like Zepol’s TradeIQ and a few other premium providers, which can do advanced analysis at both a detailed and aggregate level. Accuracy will become a key factor and unrelated results will not be tolerated when choosing a trade data provider. These factors will play key roles as users are required to be more efficient by cutting the time needed to pull, clean, and analyze data in lean environments.

5. Increased need for users to connect with each other

Social media and web 2.0 will begin to make its way into the trade data industry. While I do not predict that every user will expose what competitors they track and how they analyze their markets, users will begin to share best practices and answer each other’s questions on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook.