Counterfeit consumer goods

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A Sharpie marker, next to a "Shoupie" marker.

A security hologram label on an electronics package for authentication

Counterfeit consumer goods, commonly called Knock Offs, are counterfeit or imitation products offered for sale as if they were authentic. The spread of counterfeit goods has become global in recent years and the range of goods subject to infringement has increased significantly. According to the study of Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau (CIB) of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) counterfeit Goods make up 5 to 7% of World Trade, however, these figures cannot be substantiated.^[1] According to the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition if the knockoff economy were a business, it would be the world’s biggest.^[2] A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development indicates that up to 200 billion U.S. Dollars of international trade could have been in counterfeit and pirated goods in 2005 (2% of World Trade in 2005).^[3]

Apparel and accessories

Counterfeit clothes, shoes and handbags from designer brands are made in varying quality; sometimes the intent is only to fool the gullible buyer who only looks at the label and doesn't know what the real thing looks like, while others put some serious effort into mimicking fashion details. Others realize that most consumers do not care if the goods they buy are counterfeit and just wish to purchase inexpensive products. The popularity of designer jeans in 1978, spurred a flood of knockoffs. Factories that manufacture counterfeit designer brand garments and watches are usually located in developing countries. Many international tourists visiting Beijing will find a wide selection of counterfeit designer brand garments at the infamous Silk Street. Counterfeiting in China is so deep rooted that when shops selling relevant merchandise in Silk Street were shuttered by authorities, the owners protested publicly against this action.^[4]

Expensive watches such as are vulnerable to counterfeiting; it is a common cliché that any visitor to New York City will be approached on a street corner by a vendor with a dozen such counterfeit watches inside his coat, offered at bargain prices.

In Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, extremely authentic looking, but very poor quality watch fakes with self-winding mechanisms and fully working movements can sell for as little as US $20. On the other hand, some fakes' movements and materials are of remarkably passable quality — albeit inconsistently so — and may look good and work well for some years, a possible consequence of increasing competition within the counterfeiting community.

Media products

Compact Discs, videotapes and DVDs, computer software and other media which are easily copied can be counterfeited, and sold through vendors at street markets, night markets, mail order, and numerous Internet sources, including open auction sites like eBay.

Music enthusiasts may use the term "bootleg recording" to differentiate otherwise unavailable recordings from counterfeited copies of commercially released material.

In India, copies of bestselling books with photocopied jackets sell for a fraction of the genuine retail price. They are openly sold on streetcorners, with hundreds of copies spread out on blankets.^{[citation needed]}

Medications

A counterfeit drug or medicine is one which is produced and sold with the intent to deceptively represent its origin, authenticity or effectiveness. It may be one which does not contain active ingredients, contains an insufficient or inaccurate quantity of active ingredients, or contains entirely incorrect active ingredients (which may or may not be harmful), and may be sold with inaccurate, incorrect, or fake packaging. Although the deception often lies in the contents, it may also attempt to or succeed at containing the exact correct formulation, but be produced illicitly, in violation of patents or trademarks. There is a significant trade in high quality counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs, both with attempt to deceive the customer into perceiving them as originals and simply in violation of patents and trademarks.

Generic drugs that are legally manufactured and sold without deceptive representations regarding origin, authenticity or effectiveness are not counterfeits. However generic drugs that are illegally manufactured even though they are equivalent to the brand name product are deemed counterfeit.

Food

Many food products may be counterfeit in that they infringe upon copy trademarks of other known manufacturers. This is prevalent in much of China and Southeast Asia.^{[citation needed]} This is however different from artificial foods which do not contain the ingredient after which they are named, such as artificial vanilla. Artificial products use the good name of the real product to try to increase people desire but offering the product at a lower price.

There are counterfeit versions of Cadbury's products in some countries in Europe; these are usually based on biscuit products.

Companies

Third World nations, especially in Southeast Asia, have en masse copied corporate logos and names of primarily Western and Japanese companies. Some of these companies have even become listed on stock exchanges in their respective nations, such as Pensonic, a Panasonic knockoff in Malaysia. Other companies continue to operate in their respective industries, such as Hanabishi, a knockoff of Mitsubishi Electric, whom it shares a similar 3-branched red logo. Ironically, it's the "Mitsu" part that means three, not the "bishi". Still others have taken famous trade names and used them for industries other than which they knocked off, such as Hatari, which is a Thai manufacturer of electric fans based on the Atari name (originally a computer game manufacturer in the US), and TOA Paint, which is based on Japan's TOA Corp. name, but doesn't manufacture electronics at all.

Perhaps most astonishing, there has been at least one instance of an entire fake parallel manufacturing / distributing / retail system. NEC, the large Japanese electronics company, was so copied in SE Asia. An enterprising customer, dissatisfied by the fake NEC's warranty service, complained to (real) NEC headquarters in Japan, who thereupon found they were manufacturing and distributing products they had never heard of. This is especially ironic in that NEC was discovered, a few decades ago, to have reverse engineered the original Zilog Z-80 microprocessor and marked it as a product of their own development. The deception was discovered when it was found that NEC's Z-80 work alike had exactly the same non-functional or mistaken lithography errors as the Z-80 itself. NEC lost the resulting infringement lawsuit.

See also

• Authentication
• Track and trace
• Packaging and labelling
• Security printing
• Knock Off (film)
• Parallel import
• Shanzhai

References

External links

• Designer Replica Handbags