The company announced today (Dec. 21) that it has hired the architect of Apple’s anti-counterfeiting program, Matthew Bassiur, as head of global intellectual property enforcement.
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“We will continue to be relentless in our long-term commitment to protect both consumers and intellectual property rights owners”, said Ma on Monday.
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Bassiur joins from Pfizer where he oversaw counterfeiting operations, Alibaba said. “His expertise in IP rights protection, policy creation and enforcement, as well as his deep familiarity with China, will complement our dedicated IPR enforcement team in China and help us to continue to globalize as a company, working with our brand, industry and government partners worldwide”.
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Before Apple, Bassiur worked at Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, and in the US Department of Justice.
The announcement comes after Alibaba narrowly avoided being placed on the USTR’s just-published Notorious Markets list for 2015, but came in for stern criticism for not doing enough to stop counterfeits infiltrating its Taobao and Alibaba.com platforms.
Alibaba appeared on the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative’s “Notorious Markets” list as recently as 2012.
Bassiur also specialised in Asian organised crime during a stint as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, and taught intellectual property law at Beijing’s Renmin University.
“This is more of a China problem than anything, and it’s more of an e-commerce problem overall”, said Alibaba spokesman Bob Christie, adding that Alibaba often gets singled out over its competitors, including JD.com.
Alibaba is trying to show once again that it is taking its counterfeit problem seriously. That’s a new role “to lead Alibaba Group’s industry-leading anti-counterfeiting efforts”, the company explained in an announcement.
“USTR is increasingly concerned by rights holders’ reports that Alibaba Group’s enforcement program is too slow, hard to use, and lacks transparency”, the most recent USTR report states.
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The AAFA has also complained about Alibaba to the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), which has jurisdiction as the Chinese company’s shares are publicly traded in the US.
