Intellectual property rights during economic downturn: As economic development slows down, corporate intellectual property teams are under pressure to improve efficiency.
Economists generally predict that the world economy is slowing down, but the extent and depth of the slowdown are still unclear.
Many companies have already started freezing hiring and even starting layoffs. The internal intellectual property team of the enterprise is also required to save expenses and use the budget reasonably. Economic recession is not a good thing, but on the other hand, it also provides an opportunity to improve efficiency.
Since the costs of maintaining trademarks and patents are fixed, budget cuts often end up in managing variable costs. Intellectual property rights protection projects are often the first to bear the brunt. This is actually not a bad thing. Enterprises’ intellectual property rights protection projects are sometimes less efficient due to routines. Therefore, it is necessary and beneficial to regularly review the effects of rights protection projects to ensure that intellectual property rights protection projects are consistent with corporate goals.
How can the corporate intellectual property legal team obtain greater returns from rights protection projects?
Be wary of the illusion of massive deleted chains
A large number of counterfeit products are sold through online platforms. Although the prevalence of counterfeit products on different platforms varies from country to country due to differences in platform and country policies, but on any platform, the number of counterfeit product links of a brand can easily reach thousands.
For the intellectual property legal team of a company, asking the platform to remove links to counterfeit products is as easy as picking the lower fruit of the fruit tree. The problem with this is that such removals usually only remove ads for counterfeit products, not the products themselves. We have noticed that there are more and more AI software that help companies remove links on a large scale. Although these software can achieve massive link deletions, these deleted links are not the truth of the problem of brand counterfeit products.
“AI chain deletion is a growing trend, but corporate IP legal teams need to be vigilant,” said Nick Redfearn , partner and head of enforcement at Rouse. “Reports from these software companies show how algorithms identify counterfeit products and automatically send takedown requests, showing links to millions of dollars worth of counterfeit goods removed. Enterprise business or marketing department will see these reports and recognize the link removal project as a success of.
“But these figures only show how many ads for counterfeit products have been removed. The real counterfeit products are still in the warehouse. In many cases, the ads for counterfeit products are even reposted the next day,” he said.
“Chain removal is still a necessary part of an enforcement program, but it needs to be guided by the right KPIs and needs to be able to reach the counterfeit goods themselves,” Redfearn said. “Our suggestion is: allocate your rights protection budget reasonably, and don’t spend all your budget on chain deletion just because it looks easy, which often only solves half of the problem.”
Balancing the Content of a Brand Protection Program
Recession feeds the gray economy. During an economic downturn, people want to buy cheaper goods, which may lead to an increase in counterfeit goods.
For this reason, brand owners should continue to defend their rights offline. Offline rights protection attacks on distribution networks, freight forwarders and factories, and disrupts the supply chain of counterfeit products. A rights protection strategy that considers the overall situation should take into account both the supply source of counterfeit products and the middlemen who drive demand, rather than just staying online to delete links.
Another challenge facing corporate IP legal teams—especially those facing hiring freezes or layoffs—is that offline enforcement work is too fragmented and unfocused, which can have a “scratch” effect. IP legal teams should focus on the legal actions that will have the greatest impact, rather than scratching the surface of everything.
Redfearn said: “Intellectual property legal teams should think from two aspects of demand and supply to solve the problem of counterfeit products. It is difficult to formulate the right strategy and balance online and offline rights protection work. It requires the legal team to think carefully and also needs the legal team to have The ability to persuade higher-level decision makers.”
He said: “The legal team should form a holistic view in order to manage the budget in a balanced way. It is necessary to pay attention to online investigations, but also not to ignore the combination of online and offline investigations. It is also necessary to distinguish counterfeit and counterfeit products. actions to deter violators in a targeted manner.”
Conduct a brand protection strategy audit
It may also be a perfect time to conduct an enforcement strategy audit as the recession forces IP teams to adjust their budgets.
Brand protection programs often work best when a company’s internal processes and departments work together smoothly. For example, if a company sells high-tech products, the R&D team should be involved in setting up the anti-counterfeiting program. Marketing teams, distributors, and other stakeholders also have their own role in the anti-counterfeiting program. a seat. Internal stakeholder alignment is often a key element to the success of an IP enforcement project.
Anti-bribery and anti-corruption compliance is also critical as countries become more regulated. Anti-counterfeiting programs that have been in place for a long time and have not been audited also increase the risk of illegal activities. It is of great benefit to the company to hire a third party to evaluate and select chain deletion suppliers or anti-counterfeiting technology suppliers, because the third party has a neutral perspective and has no conflict of interest.
“It’s best to hire an independent consultancy team to review existing projects,” says James Godefroy of Rowe’s Think Rights division . “It is not appropriate for existing suppliers to evaluate the services they provide. If it is necessary to examine whether existing rights protection activities are effective, or to reset the KPIs of rights protection projects, a new neutral perspective is very important.”
“For some companies, it may be more cost-effective to spend more resources on customs seizures instead of expensive investigations, because the legal costs of the latter are usually lower than the former.”
Godefroy said: “There is no one-size-fits-all anti-counterfeiting project KPI. Different industries and companies can formulate different combinations of legal actions and project success criteria. What enterprises need to do is to conduct a global inspection to ensure the content of rights protection projects Match your own product and brand characteristics with your goals.”
With budgets tightening over the next 12 months, the most forward-looking rights holders will care about the above questions and actively seek answers to them.
