1. The fight against counterfeiting: an admission of failure?

A few years ago, not every act of counterfeiting in the field of intellectual property law was necessarily the work of a criminal organization. Today, however, the situation has changed completely, as counterfeiting is essentially an industrial activity, financed by investors from the international criminal world –, including drug traffickers – who are keen to recycle dirty money without risk. Global trade in counterfeit goods is estimated at over $650 billion in 2008. This figure is expected to double by 2015 . Depending on the scope of calculation, it represents between 3% and 7% of international trade.

The counterfeiter has only one financial objective....