Counterfeit products

[scda]

Hi all,

We are facing counterfeit replica of our electronic products on market. I was asked to investigate how can we protect against this.

I have started to look on internet and to get more insight of the matter but I couldn't find real situation scenarios with solutions. I may need more work to understanding better the situation but I was thinking that there are others that have faced this.
Have you implement any protection techniques with results?

Thanks

 

[mcgyvr]

Do you have patents or similar on these products?
Do you have a big legal team?
What country are you from? And what country are the counterfeits being made and sold?

Are you asking about building something into your products to protect from copying?.. If so its clearly too late if the products are out there already.

Scratching off chip part numbers, potting,etc.. can only go so far.
There are services that attempt to shut down sites or that specific add selling that product..
and more and more and more..

Personally I think this is smart.

http://arstechnica.com/information-...-efforts-sit-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/

 

[scda]

The job is to find immediate solution but also to work for a long term solution.

To answer your questions:
- We do not have patents on our products.
- We do have a legal team I don't know how big is. Probably not so big.
- We are located in Europe and USA and the counterfeit products are find mostly in Asia.
- I am investigating more alternatives to implement at the moment. We have products that are with low cost and more suitable to be copied but we have just find another product that is much more than a couple of hundred dollars.

I can tell that all these devices have a controller and a LCD display.

Thanks,

 

[VEBill]

Is there a Trademark, Copyright or Patent violation? Personally, I take a hard view and believe that 'IP' is and should be strictly limited these legal protections, but that's just an opinion. Others try to expand 'IP' beyond these well defined areas and it gets a bit fuzzy.

Is it a work-alike product? If so, then there may not be much you can do about it. If they've stolen your code, then you could try to launch legal tactics.

Maybe roll-out a Mark II version, and keep 'em coming. Stay ahead.

If they're being sold cheaply on eBay, then you could buy one from each seller and then post scathing Feedback reviews. It's cheating as all get out, but entertaining. You'll be caught, so be prepared for that. May have unintended consequences.

Opinion: The FTDI approach was not smart. They're opened themselves up to liability, and more directly I'll bet that Microsoft took them out behind the woodshed for a severe beating (reputation of MS Updates being at stake). They've back away from it; the overly aggressive driver has been withdrawn. It was clever yes, but dumb. I think it's clear that even they now know that it was a step too far.

 

[mcgyvr]

So are they really counterfeits in that they have your company logo,etc (trademark/copyright/pattent as VE1BLL mentioned) on them or just the same product in form/fit/function.. If the later then nothing you can do obviously as you have no IP being infringed upon.
Where are these being sold? Ebay for example can take action.. Your lawyers can send nasty letters.. You can request intervention from customs officials,etc...

http://pages.ebay.com/againstcounterfeits/

Read about what all the fashion/luxury brands are doing..
read..read..read and do what you can afford..

There are a bunch of methods out there and sadly it may cost more to fight it than to just let it happen.

 

[IRstuff]

Is there any unique IP? People have successfully used encrypted or otherwise protected FPGA data, for example.

TTFN
faq731-376

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Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Without a clear idea as to what your product is and what technologies it includes and is built upon, we can only give vague generalities.

That said, even if we gave you specifics, it's a losing battle. There is nothing you can do to safeguard your product that I can't break (and you will easily spend 10-100 times more putting it in than I will spend cracking it wide open again). A legal battle is one way to go, but that only works in countries where IP law is solid... Asia isn't one of them. And you still need millions of $s to conduct a big battle... but don't expect to extract any money to pay for that battle unless you win against a huge company (like Apple). Good luck with all of that.

If your product is only a couple of hundred dollars, the profit margin is likely to be quite small... which means funding a legal battle, funding R$D for protection methods, etc. is a no-win situation. You can make it annoying for others to copy you, but if the product makes them quick cash, they'll be happily annoyed.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[Sparweb]

Are there any differences between your products and the copies? Functional or physical, they may have some distinction that allows you to identify the fakes, and then inform your customers how to find the fakes. Loyal customers are a good line of defence against copycats. Those differences may also be leveraged to give you a means to fight back. Eg, on-line software update that sniffs out serial numbers and sabotages the offending units.

Do you have a next-generation product in the works? I hope you do - the life cycle of the current products may be near an end. Can you incorporate technology that will make the counterfeiters' job more difficult in the future? User-level security, centralized authentication, units that phone home every time they are plugged into the internet... whatever would be appropriate for whatever devices you have.


STF

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Sabotaging offending units didn't work well for FTDI and their RS-232 chips... Google on their recent troubles. And Microsoft is not too happy with their method of attack, either...

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[IRstuff]

Bricking the offending parts is different than have your drivers not operate with the offending parts.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

 

[VEBill]

Yes, that's exactly it.

The FTDI drivers that didn't work with the work-alike parts is fair game. Perfectly fair and reasonable.

The FTDI drivers that soft-bricked the work-alike parts (recent news) was a step too far.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Logically, it's valid. Emotionally, you're going to have a lot of pissed off customers who thought they were getting something legit, then suddenly it stops working. Even if they didn't buy your product and put money in your coffers, the bad-mouthing they give you afterwards will skim over that fact. History is doomed to repeat itself... but it's not MY coffers you're defending so go ahead and do it.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[IRstuff]

"Even if they didn't buy your product and put money in your coffers, the bad-mouthing they give you afterwards will skim over that fact."

Depending on the OP's margins, there are ways to mitigate this; it's more of a PR issue than engineering. One could have the driver say, "Oops, it looks like you bought a counterfeit product, with which this driver is, sadly, incompatible. However, because we are such nice guys, if you rat out your contemptible supplier of counterfeit parts, we'll gladly give you a 50% discount towards buying our genuine part, with your trade-in of that nasty, slimy, counterfeit part, of course. In the future, if you have any doubt about the authenticity of our parts, our customer service department will gladly verify their authenticity. Remember, buying directly from us will ALWAYS ensure complete authenticity and elimination of such costly and time consuming problems as you're having now."


Companies have made fairly gigantic missteps and recovered quite well. "New Coke," anyone?

TTFN
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Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

 

[mcgyvr]

I liked the FTDI trick.. I think its great and I think its what consumers need as we are more than happy now to give money to "counterfeiters" to save a buck while possibly putting a "good" company out of business.
I believe that most people actually know they are buying what could be fake parts but they just don't care because cost is #1 reason now why one picks one product over the other.

I think consumers need a good kick in the pants..

 

[scda]

Thanks for the feedback. I apologize I wasn't able to answer for few days.

<< Are there any differences between your products and the copies? >>
My answers:
- there are physical differences that are not so visible for a customer.
- the software code is not similar
- the meters are similar in design and cost with a voltage meter, the difference is that they measure different parameters.

I would like to ask :
- what about a web based serial number tracking system? Is this effective? Does anyone has experienced this.
- we may think of using holographic overture technology but how much these are effective?

We are looking for future solutions at the moment. Could you tell please if you have experienced/used these technologies with success.

Thanks

 

[zappedagain]

Web based tracking might work if your device is a PC/Mac peripheral. Otherwise how do you guarantee web access? How will you get through the customer's firewall? Do you plan to make your product unusable until after the registration process is complete, much to the annoyance of most customers? Those are just the first concerns that come to mind; the web seems a lot simpler than it is in reality.

Z

 

[1gibson]

So other than having similar functionality and using the same or very similar enclosure, it is a unique product from yours? Based on different code and parameters, sounds like it was developed independently. Unless your logo is on the "counterfeit" part (which has been asked already but not answered) then you might be over reacting based on the information presented so far.

 

[scda]

@1gibson
Our logo is on the fake product. It's actually similar in appearance with some hard to observe differences.

@zappedagain
Our products are not PC/MAC peripherals.

As I see it and after some research there are some ideas:
1. Special labeling with unique ID ( serial numbers ) may be with CRC. Allow customer to verify on web or even using SMS that the product is genuine.
2. Track the product through the supply chain. I am not sure this is possible for our company. I am new in the group.
3. Programs for the markets where the fake products have been found to educate/inform the customers how/where to buy genuine products.

The most I like is number 3 because this would help customer to buy the right product in the first place. I don't like the idea of having a potential customer that finds out his meter is fake after he payed for it.

Any thoughts on how to implement/improve 2 and 3?

Thanks,
Cristi

 

[MacGyverS2000]

I would select #1. Gives the user a chance to register their unit (provide some incentive, like a written user manual, 5% off their next order, etc.), as well as giving people who recently purchased a fake unit the time to get their money back.

Educate customers all you want (though I imagine educating potential, but not as-of-yet, customers would be a tough row to hoe... and you'll likely to cover less ground than you need to), but that's still a tough pill to swallow for someone who DID purchase a fake unit. Their situation still hasn't changed, they have a fake unit.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[telecomguy]

Along the lines of IRstuff's suggestion, this is what my printer tells me every time I print because I bought some refurbished print cartridges on Amazon. 'Used or Counterfeit Cartridge Detected'

http://h10025.

http://www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03772927&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en

http://xternal.me