All industries suffer from counterfeit products, resulting in inferior goods, loss of profits and, in some instances, loss of life.
What are the risks that goods being purchased are in fact counterfeit?
A Google search for 'counterfeit goods' should convince you that 'fake goods' is a major world-wide issue, though, as you are reading this page, you are unlikely to need convincing.
All markets are at risk of being forged. The risk is especially severe where an article is of high value relative to the cost of production of a similar but inferior product.
Experience and common sense tells us that the vast majority of counterfeit products go undetected as otherwise the forgers would have been out of business a long time ago.
The image above shows a genuine Intel memory chip and its counterfeit replica.
Can you tell which is which?
The external appearances of these chips are identical. Only the x-ray images reveal that the internal structure of the counterfeit one is different (on the right).
Much money has been expended on various Counterfeit Protection products.
The fact that there is a steady stream of new products always coming on the market shows that none of them actually solve The Risks.
The next page gives the background to the common methods currently in use. Unfortunately, they all fail as they are products that can also be copied by the forgers, making the whole process futile.
All they achieve is to raise the cost of forgery by the same amount as the cost to the original manufacturer.
On the last two pages we describe in detail how our system provides proof of authenticity and guarantees that an item is genuine.
Is such a proof possible?
Does such a system actually exist today?
Is the system actually in use?
The answer to all three questions is a definite YES.
The system is not just a concept. It has been fully implemented since 2015 and is currently used in the UK, Europe and the US.
It is a proven and inexpensive system that can ensure that your customers can satisfy themselves of the authenticity of what they are about to purchase.
Toll of counterfeiting and piracy predicted to top $4.2 trillion
"Global impacts of counterfeiting and piracy to reach US$4.2 trillion by 2022"
The above report, from 2016, estimates that the nearly $1 trillion of counterfeit goods in 2013 will grow to over $4.2 trillion in 2022.
Over $130,000 every second of the year!
Is your Louis Vuitton bag real?
A very nice and thoroughly researched article on what to look out for but let us be real!
You would probably need at least a half a day to check out all the special features before you can be reasonably sure it is real.
There MUST be a better, quicker and more reliable way!