A Counterfeit Christmas: How to Protect Your Business and Your Wallet from Counterfeiters
Silver Bells. This stuff smells. I just bought a fake! Unfortunately, sales of counterfeit products during the holiday season are not uncommon and can apply to a variety of goods. Copycats of popular Christmas gifts including perfumes, shoes, jewelry, headphones, and handbags are often marketed as authentic merchandise. Yet unsuspecting consumers find that they have been hoodwinked into purchasing counterfeit goods, and legitimate business owners experience a decline in sales of counterfeited products. Counterfeit food and drug sales are also on the rise and pose serious health risks to oblivious consumers. So, how can you protect your business and your wallet from counterfeiters? Business owners and inventors can help protect their property from counterfeiters by registering and maintaining their intellectual property including patents, trademarks, and copyrights. In general, intellectual property is effective in helping business owners and inventors prevent their property from being used without permission. Patent protection for your property can prevent counterfeiters from making, using, offering for sale, or importing your property into the United States. Trademark protection can be helpful in preventing counterfeiters from manufacturing or distributing a product or service bearing a mark that is identical or substantially indistinguishable from a registered trademark. Copyright protection can prevent counterfeiters from producing goods that contain your copyrighted material, such as characters, books, movies, and other media. While infringement of a patent is unlikely to be punishable by criminal penalty, counterfeiting trademarks, criminal infringement of copyrighted works, and theft of trade secrets can land a guilty party in federal prison.
Consumers can protect themselves against counterfeiters by verifying brand labels, inspecting stitching, and purchasing products from known retailers. Consumers should trust their instincts. If it sounds or looks too good to be true, then it probably is. Consumers also should look for properly packaged and labeled products. Further, consumers should verify that they are using the correct website when purchasing items online. Some counterfeit websites include URLs with misspellings similar to authentic websites. Additionally, credit card companies, banks, search engine optimization companies, and webhosts are all among the parties other than the seller who may be liable when a counterfeit product is purchased.
Regarding food products, cheese, honey, olive oil, and even alcohol are among foods that have been discovered to contain counterfeit ingredients. In some countries, such as Turkey and Ireland, several deaths thought to be related to consumption of counterfeit alcohol occurred earlier this year. Thousands of deaths occur globally each year from exposure to counterfeits, particularly food and medicines. In fact, Interpol seized over 11,000 tons of counterfeit foods between November 2015 and February 2016. If ingredients are not listed or the labeling of a food product seems suspicious, then consumers may want to consider purchasing another product. Verifying the legitimacy and validity of online websites, sellers, and pricing can also be helpful in avoiding purchasing counterfeit products. So as you seek out ingredients for your favorite holiday dishes, stick to shopping with recognizable retailers and watch out for counterfeit goods.
Similarly, thousands of toys have been discovered as fakes sometimes posing health risks to innocent children. For example, while several parents were shopping for children eager to receive Frozen® and Maleficent® dolls for Christmas last year, counterfeit dolls were discovered and they contained several times the legal amount of phthalates. This holiday season, the Better Business Bureau is warning consumers that luxury purses, shoes, and leather goods are the most common counterfeit gifts that are being passed off as authentic. If you are a business owner or inventor, protect your property by utilizing patents, trademarks, and/or copyrights. As a consumer completing your holiday shopping, pay attention to any red flags and take heed to any reservations you may have to avoid purchasing a suspicious product. To report counterfeit and pirated goods, consumers can visit www.stopfakes.gov.
SOURCES:
http://lifehacker.com/counterfeit-foods-and-how-to-spot-them-1775663899
http://fortune.com/2016/04/08/counterfeit-fake-food-interpol/
For more information on this topic, please visit our Patent, Trademark Protection, and Copyright service pages, which is part of our Patent, Trademark, Copyright practices, respectively.
Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX. The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights. The firm also provides a wide range of technology, internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution. Additional information about the IP firm and its IP attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.
Klemchuk LLP hosts Culture Counts, a blog devoted to the discussion of law firm culture and corporate core values with frequent topics about positive work environment, conscious capitalism, entrepreneurial management, positive workplace culture, workplace productivity, and corporate core values.
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