Among the services provided by ECOM-US is brand protection. Engaging in online brand protection activities, I can empathize with the frustration beyond the dispute over the beauty’s forgery surrounding the late Chun Kyung-ja’s mind. The beauty incident is a laughable case where Chun Kyung-ja, disappointed by external assertions that her own painting, which she claimed to be a forgery, was genuine, declared it a fake, even using her own blood for emphasis.
Returning to e-commerce, there was a similar case involving the controversy between Cream and Musinsa over the brand Fear of God ESSENTIALS in early last year. Although the two companies were in sharp opposition, the final conclusion of the Fear of God headquarters inspection was that Musinsa was selling counterfeit goods, resulting in a significant decline in the brand’s image and sales for Musinsa.
Are other platforms free from counterfeits? Based on my experience in the field for several years, unfortunately, the understanding of the platforms regarding brand intellectual property protection seems to only make a show of protecting brand intellectual property rights, as their actual actions are not proactive. I believe that the awareness and laws regarding intellectual property (IP) are still in their infancy globally. While in the offline world, everyone knows that taking someone else’s thousand-won bill is theft, in the online world, plagiarism, copying, and infringement happen all too casually, and even if the culprit is caught, the process of imposing penalties and determining the truth is too cumbersome and challenging.
Even now, we represent brand clients and deliver information on products suspected of counterfeiting through test purchases to the headquarters experts, and we have been waiting for the actions of domestic platforms for over a month and a half. During this period, counterfeit sellers have continued their sales activities, and considering our previous experiences and the platforms’ lukewarm attitudes, it is difficult to expect practical measures this time as well. Even though the brand headquarters confirmed that it was a counterfeit, if the counterfeit seller claims it to be genuine, the situation becomes a genuine product. It is bitter to think whether we should just consider the surge in counterfeits as a sign of the popularity of our client’s brand and move on.
#BrandProtection #Ecommerce #Counterfeit #Imitation
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