Anti-counterfeiting labels

Money, documents and works of art have always been a major attraction for counterfeiters. Unfortunately, in the modern industrial society, counterfeit has hugely extended its operating fields and is now behind frauds generating extremely serious economic damages both to companies and private and public institutions in the most varied industrial and services sectors.

• Software, videotapes and compact disks
• Luxury goods or high unit value items (haute couture, leatherwear, watches and accessories, perfumes, spirits, spare parts, etc.)
• Pharmaceutical products
• Consumer goods of the most different kinds, even with low unit value, but supported by renowned and prestigious trademarks.

The quality of counterfeit products is always very poor or anyway lower than the original one; therefore, in addition to the losses resulting from a decrease in sales, the manufacturer’s image is also seriously affected.

• Even promotional “discount vouchers” and “points” are the subject of forgery worth a billion, as well as the most different marks proving the payments of taxes, fees and duties

How to protect oneself

Counterfeit can be effectively obstructed to reduce, if not eliminate, the related costs. To this purpose the product or mark to be protected can be provided with one or more hard to reproduce identification elements.

Identification elements may be “concealed” or “apparent”, i.e. easily identifiable.

• Concealed elements are very likely not to be noticed by the counterfeiter who will not even be able to try to reproduce them.
• On the contrary apparent elements are evident also to the counterfeiter who may try to imitate them, although they certainly have a strong deterrent effect. As a matter of fact, with so many products available, counterfeiters start attacking the least protected ones. They also make consumers pay more attention to genuineness.

A single identification element may not be sufficient to protect oneself from frauds. To this purpose it is necessary to create an “integrated anticounterfeit system” capable of fulfilling specific requirements concerning elements used, control devices, system features and their roles. This can be obtained with a limited investment, however much lower than the losses resulting from frauds.