Brand protection

Brand protection

There are a number of things to consider when seeking to register and protect your brands, says Lara Haidar from The Rights Lawyers.

October 22, 2009 2:29 by Lara Haidar

b. Police complaint

This involves filing a criminal complaint before the police against specific targets, staging a pretext buy and coordinating with the police to raid the location, arrest the culprits and seize the counterfeits. The police then run preliminary interrogation with the culprits to identify the source. The case is then referred to the public prosecution who decides if there are enough legal grounds to refer the case to the criminal court.

It is important to remember that regulatory actions can generally only be undertaken in the cases where the trademark being infringed upon is registered in the GCC. The government authorities will act only on the basis of a trademark registration certificate.

c. Marketing action

This is about using your sales force to give verbal and sometimes written warnings to retailers or wholesalers that they should not deal in counterfeits of your products. This includes publishing cautionary notices in the newspapers informing consumers of who the legal distributors are.

d. Commercial action

A final option is to hire the counterfeiter. Remember that in some instances the counterfeiter has probably been operating a pretty decent distribution business. It might make more sense to attract him to a more legitimate business and to get him working margins for you instead.

Whatever you do, remember that inaction may lead to loss of goodwill, brand dilution and/or brand loss.

First seen on Gulf Marketing Review magazine.

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Tags: brand, copyrights, court case, laws, logos, protection, slogans, trademarks