Tech-enabled Brand Protection

360-degree protection for your brand

• Marketplace Watch
• Domain Monitoring
• Social media Watch
• App & NFT Watch

• Search Engine Watch
• Web Content Watch
• Takedown Services
• Enforcement against phishing attempts

• UDRPs
• URS
• DRP
• RDRS

Daniel Zohny, Global Head of Brand Protection

“Leveraging business intelligence tools, we elevate your strategy beyond brand protection to sharpen decision-making and elevate your market stance, all with clear, efficient execution.”

How counterfeits affect your customers

Imagine your customers searching for their desired product online. They type the product into a search engine and a number of counterfeit items on copycat websites are shown in the search results. As they all look so convincing, the customer clicks on one and unwittingly buys a fake, trusting they're authentic.

These infringing products often lead to a bad customer experience, affecting not only your brand and you as a brand owner, but also your company's reputation and profits.

What makes Brand Protection important?

As a brand owner it is crucial to protect your brand and uphold consumer trust, prioritise brand protection technology and monitoring. This means safeguarding your trade marks, copyrights, patents, and designs from online threats and unauthorised use. Brand protection teams are essential, using technology and legal strategies to enforce your rights and ensure customer satisfaction. A proactive approach in the digital world helps maintain brand integrity and drives confidence, with business intelligence guiding effective protection efforts. 

Online reputation management is key to brand protection, involving:

• Monitoring and managing your brand's presence across social media, review sites, and search engines.
• Quickly addressing negative incidents to maintain brand reputation.
• Protecting your online presence as consumers increasingly rely on digital information for purchasing decisions.

Advanced Brand Protection Technologies

Sophisticated brand protection technologies are instrumental in protecting brands from online threats. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning provide greater intelligence, market insights, and competitor benchmarking, enhancing monitoring and detection capabilities. By leveraging these advanced technologies, brands can stay ahead of potential threats and protect their reputation more effectively.

AI and machine learning can:

• Flag accounts and identify links between them
• Learn from experts’ actions and recommend steps for mitigation
• Surface over 70% more threats that might otherwise be missed
• Provide brands with a comprehensive reports and overview of potential risks
• Enable brands to take proactive measures to safeguard their assets

The information and reports from such technologies can often be overwhelming. That is why it is advisable to use experts, like Abion, who can analyse the data and then provide insight and strategic recommendations as to how best handle the risks/infringements.

Image Recognition

In the battle against counterfeit products and unauthorised use of brand assets, image recognition technology serves as an effective weapon. By analysing visual content such as logos, product images, and promotional content, image recognition tools can identify counterfeit products that closely mimic genuine items. These tools compare the visual data with a database of authentic brand images to find discrepancies and report potential counterfeits.

In addition to identifying counterfeit products, image recognition technology also detects unauthorised use of brand assets, such as logos and copyrighted images, to prevent brand abuse and ensure rights are protected. By leveraging image recognition technology, brands can feel confident that their visual assets are safeguarded against misuse.

Case Management Systems

In maintaining a complete overview of brand protection services, case management systems like Abion Core are vital, facilitating the organisation and execution of enforcement actions. These systems streamline the process, making it more efficient and allowing brands to respond promptly to infringements. By utilising case management systems, brands can ensure that enforcement actions are carried out effectively and in a timely manner.

The use of efficient case management systems is indispensable for maintaining brand integrity. These systems help brands keep track of ongoing cases, manage communication with stakeholders, and ensure that all enforcement actions are documented and followed through. By streamlining enforcement actions, case management systems play a vital role in protecting brands from counterfeit threats.

Industry-Specific Brand Protection Solutions

Unique challenges concerning your intellectual property and brand protection technology are prevalent across different industries. Industry-specific brand protection services address these challenges, ensuring that tailored strategies are in place to combat counterfeiting and infringement. Two industries that are particularly vulnerable to these threats are the pharmaceutical and fashion industries.

In the pharmaceutical industry, counterfeiting can lead to regulatory breaches and endanger public health. Implementing robust anti-counterfeiting measures, such as secure packaging and unique identification codes, is crucial to safeguard pharmaceutical products.

In the fashion industry, design infringement and the proliferation of counterfeit goods are major concerns. Fashion companies should adopt strategies like design patents, trade mark registrations, vigilant market monitoring, and a robust supply chain to detect and address any infringing activities swiftly.

Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry faces significant risks from counterfeiting, which can lead to severe consequences such as regulatory breaches and threats to public health. With hundreds of thousands of suspect accounts or groups related to pharmaceuticals identified on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter alone, the scale of the problem is evident. Pharmaceutical companies need to implement comprehensive brand protection services to manage these risks effectively.

These strategies often include robust anti-counterfeiting measures such as secure packaging, unique identification codes, and advanced tracking technologies. By ensuring that every product can be traced through the supply chain, pharmaceutical companies can mitigate the risks of counterfeiting and ensure compliance with stringent regulatory requirements. This not only protects consumer safety but also maintains the integrity of the brand.

Fashion Industry

In the fashion industry, counterfeit footwear and apparel are major components of the global counterfeit trade, sometimes constituting up to 10% of branded goods. This industry, both in e commerce and in stores has high vulnerability to design infringement and infringing goods necessitates vigilant market monitoring and enforcement actions. Design infringement involves the manufacture of goods using patented design features to create unauthorised versions of products, which can severely impact brand reputation and revenue.

To combat these threats, fashion brands must adopt strategies like design patents, trade mark registrations, and both physical and online product takedowns. These measures are crucial due to the difficulty in controlling physical shipments in the fashion industry. By implementing these strategies, fashion companies can protect their designs, maintain brand integrity, and ensure that consumers receive genuine products.

Avoiding Brand Abuse

Brand abuse is a significant issue that can take many forms, including the unauthorised use of a brand's name, logo, or other intellectual property. This brand abuse can occur across various platforms, from counterfeit products to misleading advertisements, and even through domain squatting and phishing attacks. Brand abuse not only dilutes the brand's value but also misleads consumers, leading to a loss of trust and potential revenue. Any brand protection efforts taken by the brand owners must always seek to minimise the impact of this on the companys trade marks.

One of the most common forms of brand abuse is the sale of counterfeit goods. These fake products often mimic the appearance of genuine items but lack the quality and safety standards that consumers expect. This not only harms the brand's reputation but also poses risks to consumer health and safety. Another prevalent form of brand abuse is the creation of rogue websites that use a brand's name and imagery to deceive customers into thinking they are purchasing from a legitimate source. 

Social media platforms are also rife with brand abuse, where fake accounts and misleading posts can spread false information and promote counterfeit goods. This type of abuse can be particularly damaging as it spreads quickly and can be difficult to control. There is also often a spill over to other brand assets and their social media accounts and digital platforms.

To combat brand abuse, companies need to implement comprehensive brand protection strategies that include monitoring and detection technologies, legal enforcement actions, and collaboration with online platforms. By taking proactive measures, brands can protect their reputation, maintain consumer trust, and ensure the integrity of their products on digital platforms and analog environments. 

Key Takeaways

• Prioritising brand protection is essential for maintaining reputation, revenue, and consumer trust, involving continuous monitoring to safeguard intellectual property and proactively detect threats.
• Common online threats to brands include counterfeit products, rogue websites, and fake SoMe accounts.
• An effective brand protection strategy to be fully protected integrates monitoring and detection technologies, enforcement actions, and a robust legal framework to safeguard against infringements and preserve brand integrity.

Get started with an Online Threat Report