Counterfeit products?

Anyone have the experience buying counterfeit products such as medicine or device through online stores such as ebay or shops? Getting upset with it because does not worth the money you pay? Intellectual Property Law plays an important role in preventing the importation of merchandise that infringes in the UK. That is an important job for the economy as well as for the heath and safety of the public.

You can be pretty certain that a company that is willing to rip off a brand trademark not too scrupulous about health and safety requirements. There are lots of dangerous counterfeit products out there, and we should all thank to HM Revenue & Customs(HMRC), the Alliance Against Intellectual Property (IP) Theft and Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for helping keep them out.

But there are also non-counterfeit products that nevertheless infringe someone's trademark, trade dress, or other intellectual property right. Those products may or may not present health and safety concerns as well. But they are legally different.

Specifically, a "counterfeit" product is one bearing a mark that is "identical to or substantially indistinguishable from a registered trademark" for example fake Gucci and Coach bags, HP ink cartridges or Nike shoes.

This is a picture of counterfeit batteries and these batteries are ripping off Duracell and should seize them as bring infringing. But, is this a counterfeit products issue? "Young Emperor" is not identical or indistinguishable from "Duracell". So how do we suppose to deal with it?

Actually, the label design can also be a trademarked device. In this case, beyond the Duracell name, the company all holds a trademark on the copper and black packaging a well.

Actually, CBP is on the right track about this and the folks at Duracell have been on the ball too. You need to understand that the label design can also be a trademarked device. Infringer who think they will avoid legal problems with minor changes to spelling or by avoiding the use of the brand name are often wrong.

An EU Regulation (1383/2003) authorises EU member states' customs authorities, such as HMRC, to detain goods thought to be counterfeit. The Regulation was implemented into UK law by The Goods Infringing Intellectual Property Rights (Customs) Regulations 2004 and worked well for many years with a procedure that was generally regarded as helpful to rights holders: HMRC would detain suspected counterfeit goods, contact the likely rights holder and the detention continued pending the rights holder's response. However, HMRC's rules, adopted in June 2009, now mean that HMRC will only detain goods for 10 days unless the rights holder takes court action. If the rights holder fails to take action within 10 days (or a further 10 days if requested), HMRC will release the goods.

I personally think the best way is to record your trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual property with HMRC. Then work with HMRC to let the agency know what aspects of your products or packaging are protected.

Can you spot the fake one? Only one of these packets of batteries are genuine, but which one?

=yinyen gan=