Rumours of the Kellogg’s plan to laser brand Cornflakes and safeguard intellectual property rights - which probably isn’t true, but who cares - put me in mind of my own two favourite IP stories. Unfortunately they’re both stories of infringements. One concerned a fitness company that I worked for. We sold a gym full of equipment to what we thought was a South Korean distributor who turned out to be a manufacturer. They just measured everything up and started building the kit themselves. But the funny part was, they scanned our brochure too to produce one of their own and in doing do air brushed the images of my colleagues on the computer aided design team to make them look more Asian.
The other concerns the well known Union brand - we’ve all got a Union product somewhere in the house, possibly on our doors and windows - that has had to contend with substandard and illegal imports bearing the logo Onion nibbling at its market share. I kid you not, and it’s hard to spot if you’re not looking for it. The packaging had the same Pantone reference and everything.
But I’m not forgetting there’s a serious side to all this. It’s not only lost revenue for the truly innovative business that‘s involved. In the construction industry specifiers and architects are liable for the equipment they choose. Counterfeit goods often don’t meet current legal standards, jeopardising people’s safety and leaving professionals open to the risk of litigation.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment