An American watchdog called China as the "world's principal IP infringer" costing the US economy as high as $600 million per year because of its counterfeit goods, software piracy, and theft of trade secrets.

"We estimate that the annual cost to the US economy continues to exceed $225 billion in counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets and could be as high as $600 million," according to the report by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property.

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"It is important to note that both the low and high-end figures do not incorporate the full cost of patent infringement - an area sorely in need of greater research," it said.

The US has already faced an economic damage worth $1.2 trillion since the publication of the original IP Commission Report in 2013. The US imported counterfeit and pirated tangible goods from $58 billion to $118 billion in 2015. And in the same period, $85 billion worth of counterfeit and pirated tangible US goods were sold worldwide.

Stealing of Intellectual Property (IP) continues to become a threat to the US because of the lack of legal laws and policies that encourage IP theft by public, quasi-private, and private entities.  Many experts believe that the proliferation of infringed software is way bigger than what statistics suggest. In 2015, pirated software valued at more than $52 billion worldwide.

Most piracy victims are also American firms, reporting an estimated losses of $118 billion. China including Hong Kong accounts for 87 percent of counterfeit goods seized coming to the US.

"IP theft by thousands of Chinese actors continues to be rampant, and the US constantly buys its own and other states' inventions from Chinese infringers," it said

Tagsintellectual property, counterfeited goods, pirated software, china, US, fake goods