product piracy

The products of the German machinery and plant engineering are worldwide successful. Therefore a lot of counterfeits exist. These represent a serious problem because the companies lose their return on investment. Under these conditions the project aims are to develop a method to detect potential threats and link them to effective protective measures.

Companies of the capital goods industry are more and more confronted with an increasing global competition. Furthermore the demand for a faster customisation of customers’ goods is accompanied by a decreasing product lifecycle. This circumstances lead to an uniting of companies to a value added chain which can more resist the increasing requirements of the industry. Sensitive data is consequently changed beyond the enterprise limits and the threat of product piracy is increasing to a higher level. Due to the increasing problem of product piracy this article describes the different comprehension of product piracy and explains a procedure strategy for providing of central knowledge. This described approach is not only limited to the enterprise limits. It can be used for the entire value added chain.

Product piracy has risen to a serious problem for almost every manufacturer in the capital goods industry. Especially if the customer unwittingly mistake counterparts for original products, the manufacturer will lose parts of reputation. So manufacturers have to expand their quality management with new tasks to ensure that their original products are delivered to their customers. A holistic anti-counterfeiting-strategy provides adequate counter measures for this challenge.

The increasing threat of German industrial goods manufactures by product piracy and other types of unintentional know how transfer is all but accepted today. However, generally speaking, piracy management today is still rather reactive than preventive and in most parts the results of a more or less tactical planning approach. Strategic concerns such as the fundamental strategic fit of countermeasures and actual piracy situation have not yet been solved satisfactorily. Quality assurance in strategic decision making is a prerequisite for a successful strategy against product piracy. This article presents an approach to solve the issue based on the well-known quality function deployment (QFD) method.

Product piracy poses an increasing threat to manufacturers and providers of products in the industrial sector. Therefore the application of technical solutions for the protection against product counterfeiting and copying becomes more and more important. In this context, especially the use of RFID technology constitutes an effective instrument for tracking original products and components along the supply chain and also for quick and reliable verification and confirmation of their authenticity. Within the joint project MobilAuthent, supported by the BMBF, a solution for forgery-proof product authentication and tracking along the supply chain based on RFID is being developed. This article introduces the first project results as well as the MobilAuthent concept. The presented solution can be flexibly adapted to different company and product-related requirements.

Innovation is important for the competitiveness of an enterprise. Patents protect innovations and enable companies to exploit the fruits of their R&D. This article focuses on the effects of product piracy upon our Western patent system. It shows that in the future there will be only two alternatives for the strategic IP-management in sectors exposed to piracy threats: to patent the inventions in all relevant markets or to maintain them as trade secrets. This paper highlights the parameters as well as results.

Globally increasing imitation of products increases pressure on introducing protective concepts. Analyzing constraints such as the product and the distribution process and examining protective measures are the conditions for protecting effectively. A balance between technically achievable solutions and economically justifiable efforts is to be found. Therefore, a research project of the Institute of Integrated Production Hannover focuses on RFID based authenticity certificates in folded boxes for pharmaceutical products.

Product piracy has risen to a serious problem for almost every OEM in the capital goods industry. Identifying the right counter-measures for creating and optimizing a holistic anti-counterfeiting-strategy helps to cope with these challenges. One of the most critical factors in developing such a strategy is establishing a cost/benefit ratio. A three-level selection concept helps choosing the right measures.

The German mechanical Engineering and plant construction industry has high potential risk for product piracy. The growing globalization leads to very complex and often non existing possibilities of law enforcements. Thus corporate demands are emerging for new strategies and methods against product piracy. This paper describes a concept for copy protection out of a systematic combination from an early technological implementation of controlled inter- and intraorganizational Know-how and sig-nal flows. Therefore operational and organizational aspects are reducing the risk of being copied. The described approach is not limited to the own company instead it will reconsider the whole value chain for a complete copy protection.

The increasing number of copied products of increasing complexity as well as their increasing quality is presenting a challenging task to German industry. It is important to protect the own company of unwanted loss of know-how with appropriate input of resources. To solve this task, a number of possible measures exist. Their origin reaches from juridical measures like patents and brands and technological measures like labelling through holograms or similar items to organizational and strategic counter measures. The following paper presents a scientific approach to designing individual and comprehensive concepts for protection against unwanted loss of know-how and product piracy. The approach is evaluated in industry and includes necessary methods.