Protect corporate brands, customers and revenue against online counterfeit and gray market sales

The Internet is a highly effective channel for advertising and delivering products to a global audience at a relatively low cost. This is true for legitimate e-commerce, but unfortunately it is also true for the sales and distribution of counterfeit and gray market goods. Corporations spend millions of dollars annually to build their brands and create markets, and fraudulent individuals are able to capitalize on this investment to sell fake or authentic goods online — illegally, anonymously, and inexpensively. Brand owners and intellectual property managers can not afford to ignore this growing threat, which is estimated to be in excess of US$50B annually.

MarkMonitor provides on-demand, enterprise solutions to help minimize counterfeit and gray market risks and subsequent losses. Our comprehensive, modular solutions enable corporations to protect their brands throughout the entire product lifecycle by:

Securing online channels
Register domains globally to own the online distribution channel for new product launches. Acquire missing domains and/or recover suspicious domains owned by unfamiliar third parties for existing brands to prevent online traffic diversion from legitimate distributors and resellers.

Detecting channel infringements
Automatically harvest and organize data relating to corporate brands from numerous Internet sources such as auction sites, B2B exchanges, general e-commerce sites, email solicitations and pay-per-click sites. Identify and hone in on worst offenders and investigate the most egregious cases.

Protecting revenue and customers
Take action against gray market and counterfeit sellers by automating enforcements, including bulk delisting requests to select auction and B2B exchanges and distribution of cease and desist (C&D) letters. Electronically capture and store case details for evidentiary purposes, and leverage case management tools to facilitate collaboration across multiple stakeholders.

Online Anti-Counterfeiting / Gray Market Best Practices:

• Proactively monitor product sales activity for pricing and channel compliance to protect revenue streams.
• Gain visibility into sales volumes to improve management of the online channel.
• Watch how products are represented in terms of language and graphics to assess for compliance with marketing guidelines and prevent brand erosion.
• Keep track of sales activities of authorized resellers or distributors.
• Identify unauthorized sellers, counterfeit, and illicit goods and take action.