During fiscal year 2010, efforts to reduce the trade in stolen intellectual property yielded 19,959 seizures, a 34 percent increase over 2009 numbers, said the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Seizures of products that could have harmed consumers, vital infrastructure and national security increased 97 percent over the previous year, and accounted for 23 percent of all intellectual property rights seizures by domestic value, ICE said.

The total domestic value of the fake goods seized in fiscal year 2010 totaled $188.1 million, the estimated manufacturer's suggested retail price, the value the goods would have had if they had been genuine totaled $1.4 billion. 

China continues to be the number one source country for counterfeit and pirated goods seized, accounting for 66 percent or $124.6 million of the total domestic value of seizures, the ICE report said.  

For the fifth year in a row, footwear was the top product seized, accounting for more than 24 percent of the entire domestic value of rights-infringing goods.

The top 10 categories of intellectual property rights-infringing products seized were footwear, consumer electronics, wearing apparel, handbags/wallets, optical media, computers/hardware, cigarettes, watches/parts, jewelry, and pharmaceuticals.