In our last article we sang a song of growth and prosperity for the wine industry in China, fuelled by the staggering figures of industry growth and Chinese wine consumption in recent years. This was tempered somewhat by the somewhat tragic tales of the relatively unimpeded development of a parasitic counterfeiting industry which continues to sap the profits of wine producers, damage reputations, and in some cases harm consumers in the process1.
Today however we’ll be striking a more positive note, and looking at how producers and distributors can utilise the established IPR protection framework maintained by the People’s Republic of China and defend the reputation of their products.
Traditional Anti-Counterfeiting Measures
Tamper proof seals, holograms, and other authentication technologies have long been used by vintners to identify the authenticity of their products to their consumers. Unfortunately, counterfeiters have been working almost as long to develop copies of these so-called preventative measures, and as a result they have done little more than slow the progress of counterfeiters in copying new products.
In fact, even if consumers have the inclination or opportunity to check these identifiers, the sophistication of counterfeiters has now reached the point where even the producers themselves have difficulty in identifying fakes, and are forced to rely on laboratory testing to identify counterfeits2.
Producers and distributors can no longer rely on traditional, physical measures alone to combat counterfeiting, and must also take advantage of the other tools at their disposal.
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