Summary: | In the last two decades, the overall activity of the counterfeit market has expanded and risen 10,000 percent. This dramatic shift corresponds to growth of the Internet, which has unified the fascination of obtaining cheap, illegitimate goods with the efficiency of a mouse click. With the expected continued inflation of the counterfeit market comes a host of new concerns, namely, how to determine who is responsible for the distribution of these knockoffs, and who should be ordained to limit them in the marketplace. In both the United States and the European Union, however, outdated laws produce a mélange of inadequate solutions to these issues. This Note examines these burden structures currently in place by the United States and EU States, and argues that the laws are insufficient, from both a cost and a pragmatic perspective. It concludes, therefore that the increase in the global counterfeit market demands a heightened standard of care from intermediaries than currently required by law and practice
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