ROLE OF INVESTIGATING PLATFORMS IN CURBING BRAND PIRACY

The concept of intellectual property rights is relatively new to India as compared to developed countries. With the growing concept of intellectual, piracy is also growing rapidly. There are no specific classes of product and service for the pirates as they have covered almost every product and service under the ambit of piracy be it any branded products like apparel, bags, cosmetics etc. or daily products like packaged edible products etc.

Branded products are at greater risk as brand piracy gets more profit to the pirates. Fake products are not easily detectable and thus it is a tough task for the consumer to differentiate between the fake and genuine products but by staying alert the consumer can ward off and prevent piracy. There are ways to distinguish between fake and genuine products like to check minor changes made in the original trademark, the type of packaging, any change in packaging etc. Also, buying products from brand retailers can help in reduction of fake products. Staying alert and being a responsible customer is the safest precaution.

Any precaution can not be hundred percent safe and thus being alert may not help every time which results in cases where the customer stands with fake product in his and has no clue as to whom to approach for help. Due to such apprehension the consumer is hesitant to report fake products. This is one of the main reason why there is slow growth in the field of intellectual property. Even if people know that they have been cheated they are not ready to file a complaint for that as they have a notion these things are very tedious.

This thinking of the customers is also because we do not have proper intellectual property rights legal services which is easily accessible and give speedy recovery but time is changing and there are different ways which customers can easily reach out and register their grievances. One such way is the on-line portal available for all the intellectual property complaints and provide all related services.

There are many on-line portals but when it comes to the toughest part that is intellectual property rights investigation in India, is not provided by all the portals. Investigation is considered to be the toughest part because it not only takes time and consumes energy and other resources but it may happen that no strong evidence would come out of the investigation. Evidence matter a lot because to prove a prima facie case evidence should be strong enough to build the case of plaintiff. Though such risk is involved there are platforms which work to get best result out of such investigations and one such platform is Brands and Fakes.

So, the only way to curb piracy is to create awareness among customers so that they can be a source of great help by reporting fake product more and more which will control piracy.