Understanding Trademark Counterfeit Risk: Why Your Brand is Targeted
Today, trademarks are at risk of being counterfeited more than ever before. This presents a major problem to trademark security. More and more criminals are making use of the advantage that is being presented by the enormous tax-free profits, the limited risk of being caught, and, if convicted, the minimal penalties they receive.
Well-financed global networks of criminal mafia are taking the lead in funding high-tech manufacturing networks that are involved in counterfeiting and crimes on the black market. The down side is that law enforcement does not have the necessary time, equipment and training to track down and curb counterfeiters.
All over the world, dark alleys of cities are littered with criminals selling the latest designer product for a quarter or less of the original retail price. This is often quite apparent. For instance, a $15.00 price tag on a Rolex watch or $10.00 on Jordan’s sneakers is quite unrealistic and the product is almost certainly fake. However, this is not so easy to detect in some cases. What makes counterfeiting so popular? There are a number of reasons that may explain this as follows:
- The presence of highly skilled graphic designers who are ready to create duplicate copies of logos and models made by famous designers.
- The continued availability on the market of cheap, unmonitored workers engaged in counterfeiting products of substandard quality in third world countries.
- Consumers who do not take time to look for the information about a particular product they would like to purchase but, instead, simply buy an inferior product thinking they’re getting the real deal.
- Some consumers prefer to continue buying counterfeited goods, even when they know that the products are fake.
- Some high-end stores and boutiques may display counterfeited goods. This obviously creates an authenticity complex, and prospective buyers are left wondering whether the product is actually genuine or fake.
- A company’s employees may decide to sell the company’s emblems and logo designs to counterfeiters on the black market, which are then placed on sub-quality goods.
Quantifying Trademark Risk: Why Counterfeiting is More Than a Financial Loss
The hindering factor to successfully deal with counterfeiting on a universal, global basis once and for all is that many people think that there is nothing inherently damaging or wrong with counterfeiting. People choose look the other way when purchasing counterfeited good and pretend to act as if all is well. The important thing they fail to realize is that using counterfeited goods can sometimes be a matter of life and death. Rather than simply buying a counterfeited T-shirt bearing the name of an impressive designer, one can actually end up buying counterfeited heart medication, which might be lethal.
Theft of intellectual property and loss of trade secrets can cost a company billions of dollars in lost revenue or market share, and may also damage the company’s competitive advantage over similar businesses. While many consumers and users think it is harmless, the effects of counterfeiting run much deeper than merely faking a brand or a product.
Counterfeiting can also refer to the illegal production of duplicate medical supplies or medicine. Purchasing a fake “Rolex” watch from some unknown salesman off the streets is entirely different from purchasing a heart medication from one of these criminals in the anticipation of receiving full medical treatment and may ultimately lead to irreversible consequences on an individual’s health and well-being. The effects of counterfeiting your company’s reputation could be enormous. Again, think of the case when someone was harmed after using a product with your company’s name or brand printed on the label? Informing the buyer later that they used a counterfeited product will not help. The blame would have already been placed on you as the authentic supplier, and you are the one who has to suffer the damages from the media frenzy that follows.
Reduce Trademark Counterfeit Risk: Effective Methods of Curbing Infringement
Are you interested in learning how you can curb counterfeiting and stop your product or brand from being duplicated and misrepresented? Our team possesses a wealth of information on the counterfeiting underworld; we work closely with law enforcement, and are able to find the evidence required for judicial prosecutions to help your company in its quest to deal with counterfeiting once and for all. Many companies have benefited from our professional assistance in enforcing their rights in both civil and criminal cases. We have indeed become a world-leader in anti-counterfeiting investigations.
At Digital Forensics Corporation, we are well aware of all of the ways in which criminals can counterfeit goods, right from the unknown “dealer” in the dark alley to high-end professional criminals in offices. We have a team of undercover private detectives who have been tracking small dealers to their bigger suppliers for many years now, and are well versed in all the practical details. We own proprietary databases with up-to-date information about the current counterfeiting dealers, their contact details and their common business networks. Over the years, we have done hundreds of ex-parte seizures and successfully assisted law enforcement in securing search warrants and arresting suspected dealers.
Contact Digital Forensics Corporation now! We will protect you from any type of unscrupulous counterfeiters who would like to profit from illegally duplicating your authentic brand.
Trademark investigations – we assist you in guarding against trademark theft
Suppose you just shrug your shoulders and decide to proceed ahead and design the trademark anyways, having done no investigations on its security and usage. And then, later on, you discover to your ultimate horror that your particular chosen trademark is already in use. This could lead to significant capital and profit losses by your company, not counting the damage to your reputation that will most likely ensue. That is not all. In such cases, the original owner or holder of the trademark may then decide to go on and press charges on you through the courts, and the legal ramifications will certainly damage your reputation and garnish your bank account.
Investigations on trademarks currently in use
If we discover that a particular trademark that you might be interested in is already owned by another entity and is operational, DFC may still decide to proceed further with the investigation. Our experience in this field allows us to develop several strategies that are designed particularly for such cases. The most common way is to purchase a particular product in order to verify whether a particular trademarked item is being used or not. DFC’s Trademark Acquisition Division was specifically created for the purpose of liaising with the trademark’s owner in cases where you are interested in the purchase of an existing trademark.
After providing us with your contact details through the available channels, our trademark investigation experts from the Trademark Acquisition Division immediately contact you. Together, you will be able to develop a strategic international market survey for the logo or trademark that you are planning to design. Our experts will advise you on the availability of the trademark and the methods and ways for acquiring it if it is already being used by a different entrepreneur. All the contact details of the concerned third parties will be made available to you. It is not always the case that the particular company that owns a particular trademark is using it. This is the information that we will avail to you accurately.
We Conduct Worldwide Trademark Investigations
The DFC experts can determine a particular trademark’s operation entering date. They also provide documentation from state agencies that pertains to the details of a trademarked material. We also provide you with the necessary information on how the trademark is distributed across the market. DFC has offices around the globe, and, therefore, we are able to conduct our trademark investigations from any corner of the world. Our services and packages are reasonably priced, allowing you to spend less money on conducting the actual investigation regardless of your particular location.
Protect Your Company from Trademark Infringement
Recent statistics show that today there is an ever-increasing upward trend of trademark infringements on both the domestic and international markets. Nowadays, your intellectual property is at risk of being infringed, abused and unscrupulously misrepresented in this hyper-connected age of the Internet and virtual reality. This means that more than ever before, companies now need to actively participate in securing their name, reputation and trademarks, all of which constitute the most important aspects of business, because without them, a business entity is doomed. Trademark infringements are guaranteed to lead to massive losses for a company, since the culprits will use the trademark for their own purposes without paying for it or being held accountable in any way. This is a very high price to pay for a simple overlook of trademark protection or a budget cut that excluded hiring a specialized and highly efficient company like DFC. Moreover, once the company finally realizes that it made a fatal mistake, which is often too late, the damage can be huge, as well as the costs associated with the recovery of the intellectual property.
The technological aspect of trademark Investigations
DFC incorporates a team of researchers and investigators who are equipped with a set of necessary skills and tools that enable them to secure your trademark and other intellectual product from infringement. A number of DFC proprietary software programs were specifically designed for this process, and these include Web.Sweep® and News.Sweep®, which are used to scan the whole Internet for a particular company name or name of a product. Digital Forensics Corporation also has all the necessary tools and expertise required for carrying out full national and international market surveys to determine the distribution of your trademarks. We conduct thorough and complete investigations, and these are not limited to the market, business line or location.
Fortune magazine and a whole lot of well-established industry leaders have made use of DFC products and services for the purposes of not only confirming the availability and usability of particular trademarks, but to also to find out whether their own trademarks are not being improperly used or represented. We ensure that all of our trademark investigations are entered into a report that is compiled by qualified researchers and investigators with excellent editorial skills developed over a long period of time. After we compile the reports, senior editors scrutinize them and check them for any mistakes. This will ultimately ensure that we provide the most accurate and relevant information to our customers.
At Digital Forensics Corporation, our professional investigators and researchers are always ready to assist you with your trademark investigations. We will ensure that your business is secured against infringement of intellectual property. We will also protect your company against being legally implicated in such cases. Our products and services are highly effective and have reasonable price. Contact Digital Forensics Corporation today for the total protection of your valuable intellectual property.
Trademark Investigations: Typical case studies
One of our customers from the alcoholic beverages industry asked Digital Forensics Corporation to carry out a trademark investigation. He wanted to establish a liquor company that would be producing a certain beverage. After initial investigations, we discovered that the desired brand name that our client wanted to employ was already in use by another firm. The DFC team immediately got to work trying to rectify the situation. We got in contact with the relevant parties and informed our customer about all our findings. DFC was also requested to further help our customer with the next step monitor how the alcoholic beverage business was expanding and developing for that under the new trademark. We periodically compiled our findings and forwarded them to our customer so that they would take the necessary action.
Another more recent example is the customer who requested DFC to carry out a trademark investigation for a high-end law firm. Prior to the customer contacting us, a hotel group had contacted the law firm advising them to look into a particular case in which an uprising company that was also in the same line of hotel business was poised to start using an already-registered trademark. We sent our researchers on a mission to do a thorough search on the internet, especially on social media platforms, to gather all the information that might be able to help clarifying the case. We also deployed a private detective whom we gave the task to contact the competitor’s office for the purposes of establishing whether or not they were ready to use that trademark. After gathering all the necessary and intended info, we then sat down with our client and described all the particular details of the case to him. The customer then requested the DFC team to embark on an on-site investigation to map out how far the trademark was being violated. An investigator was also dispatched to the construction area for further establishing of more facts regarding the infringement allegations of our customer’s trademark. As expected, we discovered a full-house infringement process in which a fully-operational hotel was using the trademark. In another instance, the premises were still in the construction stages. Armed with all this sensational info and hard evidence including detailed photographs and reports, we presented our facts and findings to the customer, who then proceeded with the action he found necessary to take.
