News

The IPR Center Report

Partners in Action

Volume 2, No. 3 • September 2009

Awareness Against Counterfeiting

Traditionally, while law enforcement agencies and anticounterfeiting services focus on stopping the sales of counterfeit products, the task of prevention has mostly fallen to the trademark and intellectual property (IP) rights holders. Unfortunately, many rights holders have not educated their consumers on how to tell an original from a fake.

If consumers are unable to recognize counterfeits, the expectation is that the consumer will purchase the knock off, especially if the seller is offering them at half the price of the original.

Recent studies show that even if the average consumer buys counterfeits because they are cheaper, they will not buy counterfeit products that may affect their health (i.e., beverages, medicines or cigarettes).With this in mind, the IP rights holder should devise measures by which to authenticate products and share this information with the public.

Our own investigations into several counterfeiting cases have provided surprising results, as many consumers stated that they never thought Schneider Electric’s products could be counterfeited.

The consumers understanding that all products are susceptible to counterfeiting, that buying counterfeits may be harmful, and that there are ways to authenticate a product, is the responsibility of the rights holders.

The hazards of counterfeiting are not limited to one market. Pirated software might crash computers; counterfeit perfumes might cause rashes; counterfeit clothing might dye other pieces of clothing when washed; and counterfeit electrical devices might explode. Consumers need to know the risks associated with using counterfeit items and how to avoid them.

Our experience has shown us that most consumers will eagerly pay an extra 30 percent for the assurance that the product they are buying is safe; however, it is not good news for copyright holders that find illegal copies of their products being sold at less than 70 percent of their retail price.

Unfortunately, consumers in Mexico perceive counterfeiting as a good thing, because it gives them the opportunity to satisfy their needs at lower prices, while “teaching a lesson” to “big companies.”

It is imperative that we change that viewpoint.

Prosecuting the average consumer for buying or even exchanging counterfeits or unauthorized copies of products might not be the best option; our perspective of the situation in Mexico City is that more than one percent of the population of many cities survive on the production and/or distribution of pirated and/or counterfeited items.

There is no Mexican law enforcement agency capable of dealing with those numbers while combating other crimes as well.

Schneider Electric Mexico and many of its distributors have begun a strong campaign to identify original products through an authentication seal which all molded case circuit breakers must have in Mexico.

We encourage consumers and distributors not to buy or accept products that do not bear the authentication seal, and to report instances of counterfeiting to the appropriate authorities.

Our goal is to lower the public’s acceptance of purchasing counterfeits while at the same time making consumers and distributors a part of our efforts to stop them.

We strongly hope that efforts like these will prove useful and that the number of counterfeits will begin to diminish.