Snowboarding Equipment and Accessories
Credited with popularizing snowboarding as a sport and launching the snowboard industry, Burton Corporation has expanded to produce snowboard boots, bindings, and helmets as well as a clothing and accessory line. Despite taking precautions in the form of patents and registered trademarks in the United States and around the globe, Burton has discovered the wide-scale theft of the company’s intellectual property in Asia and the U.S.
Refrigeration Test Equipment
The family-owned company Uniweld, a company that manufactures testing instruments for air conditioning and refrigeration systems, used to be a leader in their market in the Middle East. Now, despite having registered its trademark in 23 countries, including six countries in the Middle East, the company is losing the reputation of their brand — and $1 million dollars a year in sales — due to counterfeits manufactured in China and sold in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Pharmaceuticals and Medicines
Pharmaceutical drug counterfeiting serves as one of the most dangerous examples of intellectual property theft. According to pharmaceutical company Novartis International, drug pirates use sophisticated packaging methods to make it difficult for consumers and investigators to discern whether a product is real or not. Fake malaria drugs, and counterfeit drugs found injected with boric acid, floor wax, and lead-based paint (or contaminated with feces and bacteria) are believed to be the source of countless deaths yearly.
Personal Appliances
In the age of outsourcing, Farouk Shami, inventor of the popular Chi hair-straightening iron, is “insourcing” his company from China back to the United States in an effort to combat piracy and recover the tarnished reputation of his brand.
Manufacturing Equipment
Inventor George Eastman established Eastman Machine Company in 1892 after inventing the world’s first fabric-cutting machine. Today, thanks to devastating Chinese counterfeiting operations, the company struggles to maintain their edge.
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