What is Counterfeiting?

In the context of intellectual property rights, counterfeiting is called the practice of manufacturing products imitating a genuine product marked with a trademark so that at first sight it gives an impression of a genuine product. The most common reason of counterfeiting is illegitimate gaining of benefits from reputation or popularity of a genuine product, a trademark or a trademark holder enjoyed with consumers. As a rule, counterfeit products are inferior and/or non-verified as to the quality of a genuine product, and their fake marking with a trademark of a particular holder infringes both the reputation of a respective trademark or a company and the fair competition, since to earn reputation or popularity of a product, a trademark or a company requires substantial investments.

A counterfeit product in this context is considered to be any product, including its packaging, marked with an equal or not substantially different trademark without authorization of a trademark holder thus infringing the holder’s rights to this trademark.

Piracy and counterfeiting are related in the fact that in both cases it is a matter of unauthorized use of intellectual property rights, and they can overlap as well, e.g. when a pirated product completely (e.g. by exterior design, packaging, trademark) imitates a genuine product materializing the subject matter protected by a copyright or a related right, representing at the same time a counterfeit as well.