The prolific Mr Jeremy Phillips of IP Kat reports about the Marques Conference in Porto (September 18-21), organised by the Association of European trade mark owners.
Mr Scott Warren, a lawyer with Kroll in Japan, which provides risk-mitigation and protective services, both preventative and remedial, in case of for example counterfeiting. Warren, who has previous experience working for Sega and X-Box, gave his perception of why the level of IP infringement in China is so high:
“[P]eople in search of the small quantity of genuine product that does exist had to rely on Hong Kong as a reliable location for non-fake products.
“Nationalism also had a major part to play: the prospect of a distant foreign IP owner losing out, rather than a local business, also plays a part in consumer attitudes.
“Availability of pirate product is crucial too: if it can be obtained discreetly through the internet, particularly where legitimate product is hard to get, the level of infringement will always be high.
“Finally, Scott dealt with the enforcement perspective: cooperation with Customs and the deterrent effect of a spell in a Chinese prison may be most efficacious in individual cases.”
Read Mr. Phillips article here.
