Brand protection

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Brand protection is the process and set of actions that a right holder undertakes to prevent third parties from using its intellectual property without permission, as this may cause loss of revenue and, usually more importantly, destroys brand equity, reputation and trust. Brand protection seeks primarily to ensure that trademarks, patents, and copyrights are respected, though other intellectual property rights such as industrial design rights or trade dress can be involved. [1] Counterfeiting is the umbrella term to designate infringements to intellectual property, with the exception of the term piracy which is sometimes (colloquially) used to refer to copyright infringement. [2]

Contents

A more narrow definition of brand protection which focuses on trademark infringement, is sometimes used. [3] [4] Counterfeiting of physical goods that  involves trademark infringement is indeed one of the predominant forms of intellectual property infringement. [5] However, both copyright and patent infringement are possible without an associated trademark infringement, and both may result in loss of revenue and of brand equity. Eliminating diversion, gray market, or product theft and resale, are generally considered as well as part of a brand protection strategy, even though an intellectual property may not be necessarily infringed. [6]

Organisational measures

Registration and management of intellectual property is considered a pre-requisite to launching a brand protection strategy. Effective brand protection measures generally involve implementing prevention processes, monitoring processes, and reaction processes. [7] Internally, the anti-counterfeiting unit will report to top management, develop the brand protection processes, and collaborate closely with the relevant functions for each region and business unit. It will organise training and promote a culture of managing sensitive information carefully with external stakeholders. internally and externally.

For large organisations, an effective brand protection strategy requires collaboration and cooperation between departments, functions, and geographies, as well as with external stakeholders such as customs, law enforcement agencies, governments, industry partners including competitors, retailers and online marketplaces, and suppliers. [8] [7] It requires training of personnel and the development of a company culture of managing sensitive information carefully, both internally and externally. It can however be difficult to secure sufficient budget and resources as losses due to intellectual property infringement are difficult to quantify. [9] [10] Methods exist to quantify the return on investment of elements of a brand protection strategy such as the use of product authentication systems, yet organisations must first acknowledge the existence and significance of the problem. [11] [7]

A cross-industry benchmark was made with the person in charge of anti-counterfeiting of 45 companies with global market presence. [7] The two organisational measures that were judged as most effective are those that help with the integrity of the supply chain, and those that contribute to securing distribution channels.

Technical measures

Counterfeit detection

Overt authentication with a security hologram Nokia Battery Hologram.jpg
Overt authentication with a security hologram

According to the EUIPO, counterfeiting detection technologies may be classified into five main categories: electronic, marking, chemical and physical, mechanical and technologies for digital media. [12]

ISO standard 12931 provides guidelines and performance criteria to help brand owners define the particular authentication elements for either the packaging or material good itself, based on a counterfeiting risk analysis. [13] Overt security feature, such as a security hologram or optically variable ink, can be verified by an untrained user with human senses (typically by eyesight). Covert security features are verified with an off-the-shelf or purpose-built authentication tool. Both covert and overt security features may also go through the use of specialised equipment by a skilled expert. Overt security features have been criticised for their ineffectiveness, [14] but others argue that they can be "extremely difficult to replicate". [15]

Covert security features used to be verifiable by very few people, and consumers were unaware of their presence. [16] However, according to the ISO standard 12931, a smartphone is technically equivalent to an off-the-shelf covert authentication tool, yet it is a mass-market device which opens authentication on a large scale. [17] Furthermore, it can support overt security authentication by providing the instructions, after a QR code scan, to visually verify an overt authentication element. [18]

According to the ISO standard 12931, track and trace solutions alone, e.g. a serialised 2D barcode placed on each product, is not authentication. QR codes have indeed no protection against exact copy, unless additional techniques are used in combination. [17] Furthermore, QR codes can be vulnerable to being spoofed, where the counterfeiter uses a new QR code to redirect the consumer to a fake authentication response page. [19] There are ways to address this fraud, for example by encouraging users to authenticate through visiting a trusted channel such as the brand owner's website or social media account. [20] A number of techniques exist, such as digital watermarks and secure graphics which are added into QR codes to make them robust against copy, and an app can be used to authenticate. [21] There is also ongoing research on the authentication of blank paper and printed material by extracting the surface fingerprint through a smartphone scan. [22]

Consumer engagement and distribution channels monitoring

Distributed channels can be monitored, and illicit activity detected, from the analysis of the data generated from the QR Code scans. [23] Consumers can be incentivised to scan QR codes or NFC tags on products, not necessarily for the primary purpose of verifying authenticity, but to obtain relevant information about the product or to engage in a loyalty program. [24] [25] The large quantity of data collected from the scans allows to monitor distribution channels without the need for hiring investigators, and on a much larger scale. Consumers may actually demand the ability to verify that the product is authentic, and this creates an opportunity to engage with the brand. [26]

Online monitoring

With the growth of e-commerce, brand protection activities need to increasingly take place online. Online brand protection software monitor the Internet and help identify the websites that are likely to sell counterfeit, propose grey market goods, or misuse the brand and its attributes. [7]

Supply chain integrity

The implementation of track and trace solutions to capture events as goods move through the legitimate supply chain helps to monitor and detect illicit activities. The control of ordered quantities of products or components from third party suppliers can be made by providing them with secure serialised labels which must be affixed to each item. [27]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Authentication</span> Act of proving an assertion

Authentication is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicating a person or thing's identity, authentication is the process of verifying that identity. It might involve validating personal identity documents, verifying the authenticity of a website with a digital certificate, determining the age of an artifact by carbon dating, or ensuring that a product or document is not counterfeit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterfeit</span> Making a copy or imitation which is represented as the original

To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value than the real thing. Counterfeit products are fakes or unauthorized replicas of the real product. Counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product. The word counterfeit frequently describes both the forgeries of currency and documents as well as the imitations of items such as clothing, handbags, shoes, pharmaceuticals, automobile parts, unapproved aircraft parts, watches, electronics and electronic parts, software, works of art, toys, and movies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">QR code</span> Type of matrix barcode

A QR code is a type of two-dimensional matrix barcode, invented in 1994, by Japanese company Denso Wave for labelling automobile parts. A QR code consists of black squares arranged in a square grid on a white background, including some fiducial markers, which can be read by an imaging device, such as a camera, and processed using Reed–Solomon error correction until the image can be appropriately interpreted. The required data are then extracted from patterns that are present in both the horizontal and the vertical components of the QR image.

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been acknowledged and protected in China since 1980. China has acceded to the major international conventions on protection of rights to intellectual property. Domestically, protection of intellectual property law has also been established by government legislation, administrative regulations, and decrees in the areas of trademark, copyright, and patent.

A parallel import is a non-counterfeit product imported from another country without the permission of the intellectual property owner. Parallel imports are often referred to as grey product and are implicated in issues of international trade, and intellectual property.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brand piracy</span>

Brand piracy is the act of naming a product in a manner which can result in confusion with other better known brands. According to author Robert Tönnis The term brand piracy is unauthorized usage of protected brand names, labels, designs or description of trade. Annika Kristin states "brand Piracy is considered to be the premeditated use of registered trademark, its name, its tradename or the packaging and presentation of its products". It is a major loss to MNEs around the world as it causes a loss of revenue and image of the brand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intellectual property infringement</span> Illegally breaching a monopoly on an idea

An intellectual property (IP) infringement is the infringement or violation of an intellectual property right. There are several types of intellectual property rights, such as copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and trade secrets. Therefore, an intellectual property infringement may for instance be one of the following:

The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 is a United States law that increases both civil and criminal penalties for trademark, patent and copyright infringement. The law also establishes a new executive branch office, the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trademark</span> Trade identifier of products or services

A trademark is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies a product or service from a particular source and distinguishes it from others. A trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, a voucher, or on the product itself. Trademarks used to identify services are sometimes called service marks.

Counterfeit consumer goods—or counterfeit, fraudulent, and suspect items (CFSI)—are goods, often of inferior quality, made or sold under another's brand name without the brand owner's authorization. The colloquial terms knockoff or dupe (duplicate) are often used interchangeably with counterfeit, although their legal meanings are not identical.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center</span> U.S. government center

The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (NIPRCC) is a U.S. government center overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The NIPRCC coordinates the U.S. government's enforcement of intellectual property laws.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trademark infringement</span> Violation of trademark rights

Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees. Infringement may occur when one party, the "infringer", uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, especially in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers. An owner of a trademark may commence civil legal proceedings against a party which infringes its registered trademark. In the United States, the Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984 criminalized the intentional trade in counterfeit goods and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ISO/TC 292</span>

ISO/TC 292 Security and resilience is a technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization formed in 2015 to develop standards in the area of security and resilience.

ISO 22300:2021, Security and resilience – Vocabulary, is an international standard developed by ISO/TC 292 Security and resilience. This document defines terms used in security and resilience standards and includes 360 terms and definitions. This edition was published in the beginning of 2021 and replaces the second edition from 2018.

ISO 22382:2018 Security and resilience – Authenticity, integrity and trust for products and documents – Guidelines for the content, security and issuance of excise tax stamps, is an international standard developed by ISO/TC 292 Security and resilience and published by the International Organization for Standardization in 2018.
ISO 22382 is a guidance document that provides various of recommendations for the content, security, issuance and examination of physical tax stamps. The purpose of the standard is to avoid counterfeited products and ensure that the required taxes have been paid for, for example on items as tobacco and alcohol. The recommendations includes:

A copy detection pattern (CDP) or graphical code is a small random or pseudo-random digital image which is printed on documents, labels or products for counterfeit detection. Authentication is made by scanning the printed CDP using an image scanner or mobile phone camera. It is possible to store additional product-specific data into the CDP that will be decoded during the scanning process. A CDP can also be inserted into a 2D barcode to facilitate smartphone authentication and to connect with traceability data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scantrust</span> Swiss information technology company

Scantrust is a Swiss company that provides an Internet of things platform for identifying products on the internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justin Picard</span> Swiss-Canadian engineer and entrepreneur

Justin Picard is a Swiss-Canadian engineer and entrepreneur who currently serves as the chief technology officer of Scantrust, a company he co-founded in 2013. He is the inventor of the copy detection pattern (CDP), a digital authentication technology for detecting product and document counterfeiting.

ISO 22380:2018 Security and resilience – Authenticity, integrity and trust for products and documents – General principles for product fraud risk and countermeasures, is an international standard developed by ISO/TC 292 Security and resilience and published by the International Organization for Standardization in 2018.
ISO 22380 is a guidance document that provides principles on how to identify the risks related to various types of product fraud and product fraudsters. The included guidance can be used by any type of organization in order to establish strategic, countermeasures to prevent or reduce any harm from fraudulent attacks.

ISO 22381:2018 Security and resilience – Authenticity, integrity and trust for products and documents – Guidelines for establishing interoperability among object identification systems to deter counterfeiting and illicit trade, is an international standard developed by ISO/TC 292 Security and resilience and published by the International Organization for Standardization in 2018. ISO 22381 is a guidance document that provides various of recommendations for establishing interoperability among independently functioning product identification and related authentication systems, as described in ISO 16678.

References

  1. ↑ "Trade Dress Watch: A case for counterfeit trade dress | | Insights | DLA Piper Global Law Firm". DLA Piper. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  2. ↑ "IP enforcement: asserting your rights | European IP Helpdesk". www.iprhelpdesk.eu. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  3. ↑ "BRAND PROTECTION | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary". dictionary.cambridge.org. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  4. ↑ Fairley, Michael; Plimmer, Jeremy (2019). Encyclopedia of Brand Protection and Security Printing Technology. Tarsus Exhibitions & Publishing Ltd. ISBN   978-1910507209.
  5. ↑ Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact. Illicit Trade. 2016. doi:10.1787/9789264252653-en. ISBN   9789264252646 . Retrieved 2020-05-03.{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  6. ↑ "PROTECTING BRANDS AGAINST THE GRAY MARKET | On Publishing" . Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Staake, Thorsten (2010). Countering counterfeit trade: illicit market insights, best-practice strategies, and management toolbox. Springer. ISBN   978-3-642-09562-7. OCLC   1132506670.
  8. ↑ "Anti-Counterfeiting & Brand Protection". 2018 Health for Humanity Report. 2019-05-03. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  9. ↑ "How to combat counterfeiting | World Trademark Review". www.worldtrademarkreview.com. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  10. ↑ "Intellectual Property: Observations on Efforts to Quantify the Economic Effects of Counterfeit and Pirated Goods" (GAO-10-423). 2010-04-12.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ↑ Hopkins, David M. (2003). Counterfeiting exposed: protecting your brand and customers. J. Wiley & Sons. ISBN   9780471269908. OCLC   1028576783.
  12. ↑ "EUIPO Anti-Counterfeiting Technology Guide". European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights. 2021-02-26. Archived from the original on 2021-03-17. Retrieved 2021-05-16.
  13. ↑ "ISO 12931:2012". ISO. 8 January 2014. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  14. ↑ Graham, Marty (2007-02-07). "Fake Holograms a 3-D Crime Wave". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  15. ↑ "How holograms can stop counterfeiting". Packaging Digest. 2008-07-31. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  16. ↑ Hopkins, David M. (2003). Counterfeiting exposed: protecting your brand and customers. Kontnik, Lewis T., Turnage, Mark T. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley & Sons. ISBN   0-471-26990-5. OCLC   51476792.
  17. 1 2 "Survey of techniques for fight against counterfeit goods and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) infringing". EU Science Hub - European Commission. 2016-01-07. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  18. ↑ "HP Mobile Authentication: How to detect fake products". The NewsMakers. 2013-06-18. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  19. ↑ Fowler, Bree. "QR code scams are on the rise. Here's how to avoid getting duped". CNET. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
  20. ↑ "In-depth review: QR code solutions for anti-counterfeiting, with examples". Scantrust. 2022-03-22. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
  21. ↑ "Anti-counterfeiting Solutions". www.dupont.com. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  22. ↑ Waldemar, Berchtold (2021). "Fingerprinting Blank Paper and Printed Material by Smartphones". International Symposium on Electronic Imaging: 298–1, 289–6.
  23. ↑ Baldini, Gianmarco. Nai Fovino, Igor. Satta, Riccardo. Tsois, Aris. Checchi, Enrico. (2015). Survey of techniques for the fight against counterfeit goods and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) infringement. Publications Office. ISBN   978-92-79-54544-3. OCLC   948769474.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  24. ↑ "Behind Every Smart Product is Smart Packaging | Future Food Asia". futurefoodasia.com. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  25. ↑ "Pernod to roll out smart bottles 'in coming weeks'". 14 February 2017. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  26. ↑ "Lock and load: How closures makers are battling counterfeiters". 11 November 2019. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  27. ↑ Staake, Thorsten (2008). Countering counterfeit trade: illicit market insights, best-practice strategies, and management toolbox. Fleisch, Elgar. Berlin: Springer. ISBN   978-3-540-76946-0. OCLC   234294078.
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