Albert S.K. Ho of Hong Kong Customs Gives Preview of the Future of Enforcement, Including 3D Printing

During the IP HK-EU Series 2013 Expert Conference, which was entitled “Hong Kong – European Union Cooperation in Protecting and Developing Intellectual Property and Brands: Current Situation and Future Trend”, September 2 at the Hong Kong Baptist University, Albert Ho, Assistant Commissioner, Intelligence and Investigation Branch, Hong Kong Customs and Excise, shared some great ideas that would help right holders worldwide enforce their rights in Hong Kong.

 

Innovative rights holders can stay one step ahead the producers of counterfeits, but they have to inform the customs of how to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit products. The practice was that a representative of the rights holders goes to the customs and checks whether the products are genuine or not, or gives the customs training to be able to do this by themselves. Hong Kong Customs and Excise has been thinking outside of the box about ways that rights holders outside Kong Kong can help determine Hong Kong Customs what is counterfeit.

 

 

Hong Kong Customs and Excise is developing electronic recordation of the goods;
A video-link could be established between Hong Kong Customs and the rights holder, so that the latter can virtually examine whether the goods are counterfeit;
The rights holder can send the design file of their product which includes some indicators that distinguish genuine from counterfeit to Hong Kong Customs, which they subsequently can print out via a 3D printer.

 

“New at IP Dragon: HK Customs will experiment with 3D printing to enforce”  http://clicktotweet.com/ vBdTq

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