A ‘counterfeit’ is commonly an short article which is intentionally created to appear like an original post so that consumers are deceived into acquiring the counterfeit for the original. As a rule, counterfeits are significantly significantly less expensive than the original.
“Counterfeiting” is a disease that infects and erodes the brand worth of a trade mark. The brand worth is the perception of a brand in the minds of shoppers. As a brand starts becoming counterfeited slowly but certainly, the perception of the branded product begins to erode and when clients see a branded item in the market place or in the possession of other buyers they wonder no matter if it is genuine or counterfeit.
Two definite symptoms that a brand has been infected by counterfeiting is [a] the complaints the brand owners begins getting about defective or substandard merchandise and [b] reduction in sales in places exactly where counterfeiting is taking place.
In most jurisdictions all over the planet the law has prescribed really efficient treatments to fight the counterfeiting illness: The Trade Marks Act in various jurisdictions, for instance, dispenses a deterrent punishment for counterfeiters which may contain a jail sentence and stringent fines apart from the confiscation and destruction of the counterfeiting articles. In Thailand for instance counterfeiting is punishable even by death. Punishments beneath the Copyright Act are also stringent with a prescribed punishment of a jail sentence and with an escalation series of fines. In addition to remedies below the criminal law the law of most countries also supply the brand owner remedies below the civil law by which suits for damages can be filed and damages obtained swiftly and effectively. In some countries, for instance in China, administrative remedies are obtainable by which even though jail terms are not prescribed, rapid seizures of counterfeit solutions are obtainable. Quite a few of the laws relating to trans-border sales of goods also have built in remedies for inspecting and confiscating suspected counterfeit goods. In most jurisdictions the process for taking recourse to effective remedies has also been streamlined with sufficient safeguards against misuse of the provisions, such as the requirement of taking approvals from the trade mark registry just before initiating criminal proceedings. In spite of these treatments, however, now the counterfeiting disease is as rampant as ever and has infamously accomplished epidemic status.
In this dissertation an attempt is produced to analyze exactly where we went incorrect, to present an successful tactic for controlling this illness and ultimately to present solutions to eradicate the illness by implementing these methods.
To recognize the ramifications of the counterfeiting disease, we ought to initially realize its aetiology: the causative things and the situations favorable for the development and proliferation of the counterfeiting virus.
The single most critical causative aspect for counterfeiting is ‘greed’. Counterfeiting will flourish in an environment exactly where the expense of the original solution that is sought to be counterfeited is somewhat higher, the original product is in brief supply and has a considerable demand and the look and feel of the solution is conveniently reproducible. Pharmaceutical counterfeiting falls usually in this class. Another environment in which counterfeiting thrives is where the original item has snob appeal. Luxury goods, such as designer accessories are species of this genus. Consumers who cherish the original higher value items for their snob appeal are prepared to buy the considerably reduce priced counterfeits knowingly for flaunting purposes.
A demographic environment needed for counterfeiting is an location exactly where there is a somewhat significant population, with a thriving typically unregulated market place and a consumer profile that is upwardly mobile. This tends to make nations like China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangla Desh and Thailand areas eminently suitable for the counterfeiting virus to thrive and proliferate. A current trend is the proliferation of what are known as no cost trade zones where there is minimum regulation of goods coming in and going out. These totally free trade zones such as in Dubai, Hong Kong and near the Panama Canal have develop into transit points for the transfer of counterfeit goods especially counterfeit drugs, from countries where they are cheaply manufactured to nations where these goods have a lucrative market place value. Pharmaceutical goods are particularly effectively suited for transfers via the absolutely free trade zones.
Counterfeiting activity broadly falls into two categories: Locally created or domestic counterfeits and counterfeit goods imported from abroad or foreign counterfeits. We advocate distinct techniques for tackling domestic and foreign counterfeits. A further slightly diverse category of counterfeits is refilling, which has been now refined to an art form. In refilling original packages are recycled to the customer immediately after becoming refilled with locally created product. Printer cartridges, Alcohol and perfume bottles are particularly susceptible to this form of counterfeiting.
In most jurisdictions, counterfeiting is being attacked, in our opinion, in a random, haphazard and unsatisfactory manner. This has truly exacerbated the illness and increasingly the counterfeit virus has become resistant to remedy. Anti counterfeit actions are handled either by law firms or agencies headed by retired police or government officials. These actions take the type of minimalistic investigation by ‘informants’ followed by ‘raids’ on ‘unearthed retailer of counterfeit goods’. The raids are performed with the assist of police officials either straight or beneath the orders of a neighborhood judicial officer such as a magistrate. Following these raids, the regular approach is to settle the matter with the particular person or enterprise raided. Counterfeit goods seized in the course of these raids are confiscated and destroyed and the person who is raided frequently ends up paying ‘compensation’: a portion of which goes towards financing the raid in the first location and a fraction goes to the brand owner. If a case is registered, this is necessarily essential to be compounded or quashed in legal systems where criminal circumstances relating to IPR cannot be compounded. The brand owner is proudly presented periodically with a report on the quantity of raids effectively carried out, the quantity of counterfeit goods seized, and the compensatory amounts collected along with undertakings from people not to repeat the activity. There is practically no initiative to pursue complaints to conviction. For a conviction what is required is a trial. online passport application have to have to be meticulously performed by lawyers proficient in the criminal course of action. These trials are time consuming and relatively extra pricey than the procedure of obtaining the initial orders and conducting ‘raids’. Nonetheless, this failure to oversee the proceedings to its conclusion, is in my opinion the root trigger of the escalation of the trouble. I will once once more clarify this with respect to the analogy of an infected state of getting. Truncating the anti-counterfeit proceedings by settlement is like stopping treatment prematurely on the second day of a 5 day course of antibiotics, when the patient feels considerably improved and healthier. This results in the danger of a relapse and also the possibility that the microbe becomes resistant to the therapy.
What essentially takes place is that the counterfeiter realizes this technique adopted by the brand owner and the collateral damage of the ‘raid’ and the ‘compensation’ is then constructed in into the counterfeiter’s budget as an actuarial workout. For each one particular front that is raided there are ten that are left untouched. As far as undertakings, given by the persons caught in the act, are concerned, they start afresh below a new name and a new identity. Once again often the counterfeiter ‘indemnifies’ the raided retailer. The counterfeiter produces additional counterfeit goods to compensate for the loss suffered simply because of the raid. Generally the persons raided are the retailers and it is not uncommon that the counterfeiter ‘compensates’ the raided retailer with whom the counterfeit articles are placed for sale on a consignment basis in any case. The brand owner and the genuine clients are the eventual sufferers.
