Incidents reported last week include a number of seizures including 2 million counterfeit shoes in Italy and luxury goods in the Philippines… An investigation into movie pirating has yielded thousands of optical discs in India... Similar goods have also been seized in Malaysia... Other incidents reported include a guilty plea of two men in the US who were involved in a smuggling ring of counterfeit Nike trainers coming from China…Also last week the former head of China's food and drug agency was sentenced to death for corruption because of a number of fatalities when counterfeit medicines were dispensed to patients. Reports also mention other toxic substances being found in exports from China, in addition to the poisonous toothpaste mentioned in last weeks Digest… A criminal investigation was launched in the UK last week after a batch of counterfeit drugs, used in the treatment of prostate cancer, was discovered.

Policy developments reported last week include efforts by the Managing Director of Kenya's Bureau of Standards pushing for tougher laws and penalties for those trading in counterfeit goods… In India the Adobe software company has urged the government to create a new anti-piracy regulatory agency for faster action on piracy.

Studies and reports out last week include statistics produced by the European commission which show that in 2006 there was a three-fold increase in the seizure of counterfeit goods compared to 2005. 250 million fake items were seized in 2006 compared to 75 million the year before.