INNOVATION

Home / Innovation

GLOBAL MARKET

Countries and companies are continuing to open up new markets and opportunities for their goods and services. This requires the legal and administrative controls to be across many international borders. Multiple legal and regulatory boundaries make it almost impossible for Brand Owners to control their rights without assistance.

Advances in technology and globalisation have destroyed traditional geographic market boundaries… Not only for companies but for counterfeiters as well as others who specialise in diverted and grey market goods.

Recent technology has improved rapidly… placing many copying and reproduction techniques in the hands of unscrupulous people.

They reproduce unauthorised products and product packaging…which allows inferior goods to be sold into global markets at prices beyond their value.

The trademarks and brands are their invaluable counterfeit currency. The loyal brand consumer is left unprotected and dissatisfied with their purchase. The brands are being left with damaged reputations.

Sales are lost and product liability issues arise!
The solution: The consumer needs protection… the brand owner needs professional assistance and protection.

COUNTERFEITING

A Major Worldwide Problem

Counterfeiting, forgery and piracy of high-value brand-name products have reached epidemic proportions worldwide.

The cost to American business alone is about $200 billion in lost revenues and more than 750,000 lost jobs each year. Globally, the losses are far greater – accounting for an estimated five to eight percent of total world trade.

No matter what type of premium products you produce and sell – software, microchips, designer clothing and accessories, collectibles, fine art, financial instruments, videos, recorded music, baby food, perfume and more – chances are there’s a high-margin, low risk counterfeiter hard at work flooding and undercutting your market with cheap imitations.

Pirates may even be diverting your legitimately produced products to unauthorised outlets, robbing you of valuable inventory and hard-earned profits.

The fact is… most anti-counterfeiting technology has failed to keep pace with the technological skills and inventiveness of these enterprising corporate thieves.

Sophisticated corporate holograms and refractive technologies, for example, have been quickly and widely counterfeited. In fact, there’s been no visible or invisible marker that couldn’t be copied or removed…Until Now!!

DIVERGENCE

Divergence is the distribution of genuine product into unauthorised markets, sometimes referred to as “grey goods”.

This is quite a substantial problem for brand owners who wish to control the licensed distribution of their products… especially in global markets where there may be large variations in price from one market to another.

Also many goods are specifically manufactured for individual markets, either to a price point or to market expectations on quality, content etc… so any unauthorised and diverted products from another market (where they may well be quiet acceptable) can have a significant impact on the brand’s reputation.

The diverted product is often the result of loss of control over the licensed manufacture of the company’s products resulting in over production for these alternative markets.

The solution: Controlling production and marking product so it can be identified back to source and distribution.

LICENCE / ROYALTY CONTROL

The global nature of markets today makes many companies rely on licenses to control their manufacture and distribution networks. They also relyon royalties from those products for their income.

The very nature of these arrangements relies heavily on the honesty and commitment of the licensee. If they do not comply, it leads to substantial loss of income. This can be extremely hard and expensive to monitor or enforce by conventional audit processes.

A reliable method of controlling production and distribution is required to ensure due revenue is received.

The Solution: This can be accomplished by the controlled use of security markers within a well structured Licensed Merchandise Protection Program (BII’s LMP programs).

OVER PRODUCTION

Many national and international companies have moved production off shore to licensed manufacturers to reduce costs.

In many cases this has resulted in a loss of control over the quantity of products manufactured. There have been many instances of over production (genuine but undeclared goods) appearing in markets in direct competition with authorised products. This destroys any of the benefits or margins originally achieved by going “off shore”.

Companies concerned with the protection of their brands traditionally either monitor their markets via their staff or by engaging IP specialists. As good as this approach appears to be… it is often fragmented, with the source of the production or sales seldom being located.

Sometimes the source is known but in another country. When suspect products are found… confirmation of authenticity is often slow or impossible. Unfortunately, most unauthorised product comes out of authorised subcontracting plants making identification difficult.

The Solution: BII has a number of technologies to stop overproduction at the source.