Last week the United States put Thailand on its priority watch list citing increasing violation of property rights.

Project SILK deals with the issue of improving IPR protection in Thailand.

"In fact, counterfeiting and piracy not only pose a significant threat to fruitful economic relations across a broad range of sectors between Thailand and EU member states, but are also a threat to local economic and social development. Accordingly, Project SILK aims at further improving cooperation between EU and Thailand in order to transfer knowledge and to support Thai public authorities, law enforcement and private organisations in increasing Thai standards of IPR protection and enforcement," says part of the questionnaire sent out by the researchers.

The questionnaire aims to collect information about how multinational companies perceive and manage risks related to IPR infringements in Thailand, about their direct experience and expectations, and about solutions they would suggest.

There are numerous forms of IPR infringements, many playing fields and players, and various points of contact between the manufacturing, distribution and sale of both genuine and fake goods. Project SILK focuses on both institutional and business dimensions to the problem. It tries to understand how IPR violations impact on both Thai public authorities and national and multinational companies, in order to increase awareness, knowledge and cooperation.

This questionnaire is primarily focused on the business standpoint and regards IPR infringements from the logistics perspective. The aim is to achieve in-depth knowledge of how and at what stage of the product lifecycle counterfeiters succeed in infiltrating the legitimate market. The project is based on the statement that the legitimate product lifecycle itself presents some vulnerability or organisational problems such as numerous suppliers, difficulties in setting up effective controls and lack of specific procedures related to IPR protection.