The European Union announced that the European Union, the United States and Japan are joining to form an anti-piracy agreement aimed at cutting piracy of copyrighted goods and counterfeiting worldwide.

The agreement is intended to raise the bar for protecting intellectual property rights that guarantee a stream of revenue for developers of new products because they can license their designs for others to make.

The other countries participating in the effort will be Canada, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and Switzerland.

The European Commission announced that it was not trying to gang up China and Russia.