Underwriters Laboratories Plays Key Role in Global Anti-Counterfeiting Efforts
Counterfeiters cashing in on consumer goods go beyond fake Fendi purses and Rolex watches to make their money. Today’s counterfeiters are ripping off everything from electronics to pharmaceuticals to toothpaste.
Product counterfeiting is a thriving multi-billion dollar global industry. It is highly profitable and the risks of significant legal consequences are low. The profits of product counterfeiting have been shown to fund other organized criminal activities.
For consumers, it means increased health and safety risks, purchasing inferior products, and job loss. In the United States alone, it is estimated that the crime of counterfeiting has caused the loss of more than 750,000 jobs.
"As a world leader in product safety testing, UL understands its responsibility to take counterfeiters to task," said John Drengenberg, consumer affairs manager, Underwriters Laboratories (UL). "About 21 billion UL Marks appear on products entering the marketplace each year. Based on our experience, only a small fraction are potentially counterfeit. But even one counterfeit UL Mark is too many given the consumer safety risk."
Impact of counterfeiting
“Counterfeiters will copy and sell anything that turns a profit without regard to quality, safety or the law,” said Brian Monks, anti-counterfeiting operations vice president, UL. “They’re criminals, and everyone feels the pinch — consumers, manufacturers, retailers, communities and entire economies.”
For consumers, the biggest threat is personal safety. Products are rigorously tested according to strict UL requirements, being evaluated for potential risk of fire, shock, and/or personal injury. Products are not certified until they meet established standards. Because products bearing counterfeit certification marks have not undergone a testing and certification process, they can present potential safety hazards to the end-user.
For retailers, the sale and distribution of counterfeit products has legal risks, regardless of whether sold with intent or without any knowledge. If a consumer suffers an injury, the retailer may be the only traceable company associated with the distribution of the counterfeit product, exposing them to potential legal liability. Additionally, retailers can incur additional expenses by paying for inferior products, and then complying with warranty claims or recalls.
Legitimate manufacturers that invest in the quality of their products can lose more than sales if their products are counterfeited; their brands’ image and reputation also suffer. Additionally, these manufacturers incur costs to protect and enforce their intellectual property rights.
“Our efforts focus on thwarting the growing global threat of product counterfeiting to the U.S. economy, the global business community and consumers,” said Monks.
The market lacks authentic artifacts but buyers want authentic artifacts which has become difficult to obtain because competitors are introducing replicas in to the market that decreases consumers trust. The company’s major competitor is government because they do limited exports of artifacts due to their importance (Kerin & Peterson, 2010).
The presence of established competitors poses the biggest threat to Salomon. Customers create a high demand for products in the ski and snowboard equipment industry. Salomon enjoys buyer loyalty, but if they are unable to complete production in time to meet customers’ demand, customers will purchase products from other companies. The primary threat of new entrants comes from internet sellers, but Salomon has customers that are loyal and it would be difficult for new entrants to achieve the same level of brand loyalty. The threat of substitute products also provides a small threat, with the potential for counterfeit products to dilute the brand value as a
The creation and sale of low-cost counterfeits, replicas and knock-offs of brand-name originals is a common occurrence. Across all markets, counterfeiting and Piracy account for $461 billion (OECD/EUIPO, 2016). Only 25 countries have GDPs greater than that. (Statistics Times, 2017) In the world of fashion accessories, there are many companies that look to benefit from consumers’ desires to own something luxurious while paying not-so-luxurious prices. Such is the case of Finer Bags, a company that sold what they advertised as replica or original designer brand bags. Was Finer Bags breaking the law? Was it unethical? Before attempting to answer those questions, it is best if we consider the differences between the terms counterfeit, replica, knock-off, and copy. While all represent closely copied designs of another product, the main difference
Secondly luxury products are easy to counterfeit, some countries such as china, turkey, and other still have to improve their IPR policies
Obviously, with a little common sense, your average consumer can avoid the injuries that the above statements are attempting to warn against. One can argue that these warnings provide protection to the manufacturers against lawsuits based upon personal injury.
According to the article, “Terror’s purse strings” by Dana Thomas, fashion counterfeiting is not a victimless crime. Fashion counterfeiting is not a victimless crime and the profits from this horrendous crime may benefit international terrorism while also stealing money from the luxurious companies that produce the fashion. Furthermore, Dana Thomas quotes Magnus Ranstorp when she says, “Profits from counterfeiting are one of the three main sources of income supporting international terrorism”. In other words, Thomas used Ranstorp’s quote to in depth the purpose of the article, which is to detail the reprehensible use of counterfeiting fashion items in order to gain money to support terrorism. Fashion counterfeiting will never be a victimless
Political/Legal: A company’s brand image may be the single most important thing when it comes to the company. Each and everyday a lot of money is spent on making sure that image isn’t tarnished, infringed on by illegal activities. Every year it is estimated that there is 300 billion dollars in sales of counterfeit goods. Also as markets continue to grow, relationships can change effecting for example tariffs.
Counterfeiting money in the United States has been going on since the very beginning of the nation. The craft can be traced back to men in Europe who counterfeited coins and then brought their art to the New World. Records will prove that colonial Americans were arrested for reproducing counterfeit money or spending it. Replicating coins was a laborious task, but fortunately for counterfeiters it was facilitated with the presentation of paper money. Close to the period of the American Revolution, a shift from coins to paper money occurred for counterfeiters. Paper money was first printed in 1775 at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Although the colonies were mostly reliant on gold coins, the utilization of paper currency had become an increasingly more common practice. This innovative paper money was lighter and easier to carry. The primary reason for switching medians of currency was not to prevent counterfeiters, but instead simply for consumer convenience. Over the ages the government became weary of these counterfeiters and further developed money in order to prevent the creation of imitation bills, but as money evolved so did the counterfeiters. Counterfeiting remains a viable crime regardless of the security measures and technology created to prevent it.
“Most of my friends shoplift or at least they have in the past,” said Erik. “Some people ‘work for eBay’, they steal expensive things that are really random from a lot of stores. Like my friend Matt takes these boxes of drawing pens that are worth either $60 or $200 and sold them on eBay. Almost every state he’s lived in has made the transition of having them out in normal art stores to underneath Ple...
I think that shoplifting is a growing problem in today's society. I believe that the temptation of not paying for something is very big factor in why people steal. Shoplifters perceive shoplifting as a form of self nourishment or as a way to relieve fear or pain in their life. In truth, shoplifting is self-destructive not self-nourishing, but shoplifters often can’t see the paradox (slp). A person's addiction to shoplifting can develop quickly when the excitement generated from "getting away with it" produces a chemical reaction adrenaline resulting in what shoplifters describe as an incredible "rush" or "high" feeling, which many shoplifters will tell you is the "true reward," rather than the merchandise itself (slp). The perpetrator of shoplifting thinks he his getting a product for free and doesn't realize it's impact on his future or the community. Shoplifting has a wide range of affects on more than just the perpetrator and his future. It negatively affects the merchant, consumers, prices, law enforcement and the economy.
Enforcement of product safety would be expensive, though it could prove to be more necessary than on...
Threat of substitutes in market as best quality is not always a priority for some customers as they are price sensitive.
Informal sector of any economy comprises of all production of goods and service which contributes to official gross national product but not in books of government or officials. Shadow economy, black/grey economy, underground economy, parallel economy, ‘off the book’ and ‘under the table’ comes under a larger umbrella of informal sector. With every passing day economic activities are increasing and making this world a global village. Thanks to channel members that spread the product from manufacturer to final consumer with the help of set of distributors that are present worldwide. But this growing market can cause unwitting customers to buy a product from unauthorised distributor, buy the product which not made for that particular region or country, buy with warranty that is not authentic or worse is buying a counterfeit product. Concept of grey market takes under the consideration of leakage from regular (formal) supply chain inform of finished/semi-finished or raw products. This leakage is mainly done in form two ways. One is theft and other in counterfeit products. In simple word the difference between the two, is nature of the product. If original product is being sold through unauthorized distribution network, this means that its theft from formal supply chain. That is again caused by several reasons and in different forms. On the other hand if the product in not genuine, than its problem of counterfeit product (product that is replica of original)
EBay as well as its buyers are award that there is a potential for some sellers to try to sell counterfeit products. Which has result in legal issues for eBay and some negative feedback from consumers. Allowing this can affect eBay because they are known to deal with some major companies, direct companies, meaning they sell items that come from those companies and there is no possible way for the items to be counterfeit. However, we do have some sellers that do take the risk and sell things that is counterfeit, not a good image for neither the seller nor eBay.
Veblen likes the fact that the working class buys knock-offs is because the people are saving a lot of money instead of blowing it all to get the legit product that the leisure class owns. Saving that money can make a huge difference in someone’s life, but spending a lot of money on some materialistic thing will not enhance a person’s life. It may make someone happy or confident, but no one needs materialistic things to survive. Looking back at the beginning of mankind, they had nothing except what they could scavenge or make from nature. However, in another aspect of knock-offs, Veblen does not like them because the working class is trying to be like the leisure class. If they do get the knock-offs then they will also be called out by the leisure class for trying to be like them, but having fake products instead of the real thing. Another problem with this is that knock-offs normally do not have the same quality as the real product. This comes with buying cheaper products instead of the actual products that are made of higher quality materials, which can make them more