The Internet's reach and anonymity have played a big part in the 100-fold growth of counterfeiting since the 1980s. The web provides a shop window on the world, yet it's impossible to police.
Boxing clever
How new technology can play a key role in fighting the global counterfeiting boom
Fraud
> Counterfeiting <
Piracy
Brand monitoring
"Counterfeiting hits every industry,
wherever there's a brand worth
exploiting. If you think your products
aren't being copied, you probably
aren't looking hard enough."
Envisional Ltd, Betjeman House, 104 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1LQ Telephone: +44 1223 372400 fax: +44 1223 372401 Web: www.envisional.com [page 2/7]
Counterfeit counterfeit -market shut briefly CCoouunntteerrffeeiittiinngg ccoommeess hhoommee ttoo rroooosstt Shanghai's notorious Counterfeiting used to be a third world problem. Tourists were Xiangyang Road Market is renowned for happy to bring back their fake watches and clothing from holidays in selling counterfeit the Far East. Shoddy copies, with their amusing misspellings and goods. In March this year, the Chinese unfortunate habit of falling apart, hardly posed a threat to sales authorities closed down an online site back home. In the main, the chosen strategy of most major brand (www.xy-market.cn) owners was to tactfully ignore what was happening and avoid giving selling pirated goods in what appeared to be a the issue any publicity. deliberate imitation of Xiangyang Road. Today, all that has changed. The global trade in counterfeits is now It's not clear whether worth $500 billion a year - around 7% of all the world's trading. The there was ever any business connection World Health Organisation has stated that more than 1 in 10 between the site and pharmaceutical products sold worldwide is counterfeit, while the Xiangyang Road. problem is even more severe for the music, entertainment and Ironically, the website itself may have been software industries. trading on Xiangyang Road's own long-A problem that could be blithely overlooked 25 years ago, when the established reputation - making it a sort of International Trade Commission estimated total losses from counterfeit counterfeit counterfeiting and piracy at $5.5 billion a year, has literally been market. And despite the multiplied by a factor of 100. apparently severe action by the powers Counterfeiting hits every industry and every product type, wherever that be, the site was there's a brand that's worth exploiting. Electronics, car parts, up and running again two months later, fashion and cosmetics are just some of the victims. UK consumers offering a wide range of branded goods, are regularly buying fake vodka, condoms, video cameras and from fake Rayban washing powder, too, firmly believing that the trusted brands they sunglasses ($12) to Burberry "scrafs" for see on the packaging - Smirnoff and Durex, JVC and Bold, and just $14. dozens of other household names - reflect and guarantee the quality of the goods inside.
For brand owners, today's truth is distinctly uncomfortable. Counterfeiting is everywhere. If you think your products aren't being copied, you probably aren't looking hard enough.
Killer fakes cost lives, as well as profits
Counterfeits don't just cost manufacturers and brand owners money. They kill people.
Fake pharmaceutical products may be bulked out with sugar, chalk and various abrasive or even poisonous materials. Counterfeit drugs
Envisional Ltd, Betjeman House, 104 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1LQ Telephone: +44 1223 372400 fax: +44 1223 372401 Web: www.envisional.com [page 3/7]
with inactive ingredients leave patients at the mercy of their Treatment is a lottery if diseases. Ineffective vaccinations let infections spread, fakes are involved endangering whole populations. Worse still, a near-miss Those who take fake formulation or a dilute, watered-down version of the real drug pharmaceuticals are playing a grim game of can allow the evolution of new strains of a disease, immune to Russian roulette. any existing treatment. There are six main types of counterfeit It's ... [download for more]
