Anti-counterfeiting: Is it time to review your approach?

This year's World Anti-Counterfeiting Day falls on 10 June 2020. To mark the occasion, we set out some advice to brand owners on how to protect their businesses and their customers from counterfeit and pirated goods. 

Most brand owners will know of the threat to their business of counterfeiting and piracy. The challenge comes in quantifying that threat in order to act against it, both proportionately and effectively. If you don’t know the extent to which your brands and products are being targeted, or where those knock-offs are being produced, transported or sold, how can you target action, measure its effectiveness and justify the budget? With what can seem like such a mammoth task ahead of them, it’s little wonder that many brand owners choose to put off for tomorrow what they could or should be doing today.

STEP 1: Building the business case

Europol/EUIPO's 'Intellectual Property Crime Threat Assessment Study' provides a valuable snapshot into the true extent of counterfeit trade in the EU. In addition, it highlights how counterfeiters are transporting fake goods in small, express parcels in order to avoid detection, and how the sale of counterfeit goods in online marketplaces and via social media platforms is continuing to grow. Specific sectors that are being targeted by counterfeiters, according to the study, are: cosmetics, electronic parts, food and drinks, luxury goods, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, tobacco products, toys and vehicle parts. 

EUIPO Observatory also released a 'Qualitative Study on Risks Posed by Counterfeits to Consumers' in 2019, setting out the health and safety issues posed by the trade in fakes. Knock-offs used to be immediately recognisable to prospective buyers due to the poor quality of the product – a typo in the brand name here, a design flaw there – its low price or the trading location (eg, a dodgy market stall). But, counterfeiting has become so much more sophisticated in recent years and, these days, many consumers are being tricked into buying products at close to recommended retail price believing them to be the real deal.

If you’ve ever received a complaint from a consumer about a product and then had to break it to them that they’d actually been sold a fake, then you’ll already know the damage that this can cause – particularly if that fake had entered your legitimate supply chain prior to sale.

STEP 2: Measuring the threat to your business

Even by tracking the web or social media for a short time, you’ll be able to get an idea how many fake versions of your products are in circulation. The next step is to start investigating their supply chain. Where are the counterfeit products being sold (on- and offline)? Who is manufacturing them – and where? How are they being transported and through which ports? What are the types and volume of products affected? What is the estimated damage to your business and desired benchmarks for reducing the impact? The good news is that many brand owners have asked these questions before you, and there are definite patterns in their findings that will help you to tailor your efforts.

As the Europol/EUIPO study identified, social media platforms are a key platform for counterfeiters, with social media channels, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok, overtaking auction sites as the biggest online platforms for counterfeit activity. Read our article 'Getting social with your anti-counterfeiting strategy' for specific advice on tackling the growing trade in fakes on social media, or sign up to a free screening to get a clearer picture of how and where your brand is being infringed online.

STEP 3: Targeting and costing action

Of course, you can’t find or stop every instance of counterfeiting; it would swallow up all your time, budget and resources. Instead, concentrate on identifying and mapping the biggest threats and the most common channels, for example, manufacturing sites (typically, China, Hong Kong, India, Turkey, the UAE, or home soil) and their distribution routes (generally, major transit hubs and international trade ports), as well as websites and social media.

Recording your trademark rights with customs in your home country and relevant overseas countries will help officials spot and detain shipments that infringe those rights. For the best results, be as proactive as possible in your efforts to educate those officials about your priority products, telltale signs for spotting counterfeits and details of who to contact if they have concerns.

To tackle the manufacturers themselves, you’ll have to find the factories before you can coordinate enforcement action. This can be harder in some countries than others, but a good start would be to look at those factories where you are manufacturing your products officially, as often these can be the source of fakes too. Ensure your agreements make it clear that unofficial copies will not be tolerated, and conduct regular spot-checks to check for breaches.

If the counterfeits are being produced overseas, you’ll need to liaise with local agents and involve local police and authorities. It’s generally easier and more cost- effective to work with a specialist IP firm to coordinate such action; especially as you progress towards a factory raid or legal action. We know from our time representing clients in factory shutdowns in China, that it’s important to have the right people on the ground to make sure that any planned action isn’t leaked in advance to the counterfeit organisation, or that the necessary paperwork doesn’t sit for too long on the desk of the relevant local authority.

STEP 4: Measuring ROI

There is, of course, a cost involved with legal actions and raids. Similarly, different countries have different procedures and requirements when it comes to seizing counterfeit products, so it’s important to check in advance which costs or actions are required. Try to avoid knee-jerk reactions when instances of counterfeit activity are identified; you’ll have spent time researching, mapping and prioritising your strategy for action, so it’s important to remain proactive and targeted in your approach.

You have to be realistic about the likely results, too. It takes prolonged action (and consumer education) to make a real dent against this type of organised crime. Shut down a factory in one city and it will likely pop up somewhere else; seize products at one customs port and the counterfeiter will try to find another route. But, continue to act against the source and you will find, eventually, that the counterfeiter will decide that it’s just easier to move on to something else.

Other techniques can be brought into play. Routinely modify the design or packaging of your products, for example, and the counterfeiter will find it hard to keep up. (This also makes fakes easier for customs authorities and consumers to spot.)

STEP 5: The right support

Finally, it’s important to work with a partner that understands the challenges that brand owners face in their battle to hunt down and act against counterfeit products.

Make sure any provider you choose brings a clear and proven strategy, and expertise on the rules and requirements in key jurisdictions, the current threats and common channels for trafficking, and the costs and process involved at each stage of enforcement. The right IP provider will know, from experience, where you should start and end your anti-counterfeiting efforts, so use that knowledge to guide you when taking your first – or next – step towards building an effective and measurable strategy for action. 

For further insight and advice, please download our anti-counterfeiting white paper below or for more information on how to protect your brand online, contact us for a demo of our automated Online Brand Protection service.