SCHNEIDER BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION TO HALT COUNTERFEIT IMPORTS ADVANCES IN US HOUSE

WASHINGTON - The House Ways and Means Committee today advanced bipartisan legislation authored by Reps. Brad Schneider (IL-10) and Blake Moore (UT-01) to halt counterfeit and pirated imports into the United States. The bill, H.R. 4930, changes how Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can share the packing and shipping information of suspected counterfeit products with key intellectual property rights holders, transportation carriers, and e-commerce platforms. This unanimously bill passed the Ways and Means Committee.

"Counterfeit goods undercut American businesses, threaten jobs, and endanger public safety," said Rep. Schneider. "We need to help CBP disrupt counterfeit trafficking networks and better safeguard our economy and communities. I'm proud that this commonsense legislation - co-authored by my colleague Rep. Blake Moore - has received bipartisan and unanimous support in the Ways and Means Committee. I urge the Speaker to bring it to the floor for a vote."

"The global economy is flush with threats from counterfeiters, IP thieves, and black-market traders," said Rep. Moore "This bill will unlock real-time intelligence sharing between CBP and the private sector that will help shut down these networks and cut off the flow of counterfeit products before they reach American shores. This will safeguard American businesses and protect our citizens from dangerous counterfeit goods. I'm thrilled that this bill has generated strong bipartisan support and unanimously passed through the Ways and Means Committee today."

Background:

While CBP's job is to identify counterfeit products at U.S. ports of entry and flag for businesses when they suspect a particular shipment might be counterfeit or pirated, they are currently only allowed to provide limited information about shipments in question. CBP is not permitted to share packing materials (such as the external container in which goods are shipped), images, labels, invoices, or packing slips that identify the product's country of origin, with key parties such as property rights holders, carriers like DHL, UPS, or FedEx, and e-commerce platforms like Etsy and Amazon.

This bill would provide explicit authority for CBP to share all relevant information with companies, carriers, and platforms where a shipment in question contains suspected counterfeit or pirated products. The bill also broadens the range of parties with whom CBP can disclose such information, including shipping companies and e-commerce sites where the product in question may be sold.

Under this bill, CBP would be allowed to share:

• Shipping labels and tracking numbers
• Sender and recipient addresses
• Invoices and manifests
• Outer packaging images, like courier tape, weight notations, and box markings
• Container-level packaging information and data

This means CBP could flag patterns of behaviors such as:

• Repeat senders across multiple shipments
• "Drop addresses" used by organized counterfeiters
• Common entry ports or air routes

Example: A counterfeit electronics shipment from Shenzhen repeatedly enters via the Port of Los Angeles, using the same fake return address and tracking patterns. With this bill, CBP can share these patterns with carriers like UPS, DHL, and FedEx to intercept future parcels earlier in the pipeline.

The Moore-Schneider bill is supported by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, American Apparel & Footwear Association, Automotive Anti-Counterfeiting Council, Baby Safety Alliance, International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, International Trademark Association, Partnership for Safe Medicines, Pharmaceutical Security Institute, and Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade.

You can read the full bill here.

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