“Socializing” Anti-Counterfeiting Activities

 This is a really hard question, focusing on three major issues, in which the first is existence of too many counterfeit producing units. The reason is the current consuming price is rather high whereas counterfeits have much lower price and complicated features (such as medicine, electronic products, fashion etc) which make them and the authentic alike and cheat consumers. This is the straight one fostering counterfeit market. Meanwhile, a large number of consumers favouring high ranked goods but without financial conditions have actively used counterfeits. The demand will make up the supply. In addition, when buying counterfeit, consumers often do not want to exclaim in fears of troubles despite introduction of the Consumer Protection Law.

 

Secondly, although there are many agencies involved in this issue such as Customs, Ministry of Health, Market Control Department, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, the effectiveness is not high due to overlapped documents issued when there is a problem arising. Concerning sanctions toward counterfeiters, the present punishments are still soft and have little effect.

 

 Thirdly, there are limited funds for counterfeit prevention, which discourages implementing staff, resulting in low efficiency or even compromised people shielding counterfeit producing units.

 

At the moment, there is a saying in Vietnam “Be a smart consumer”; however, not all consumers have adequate knowledge of goods. Even authority agencies with equipment as well as knowledge related to counterfeit, still face detection obstructions, thus, consumers should not bear all the responsibility.

 

 Although there are many associations whose names sound helpful to consumers in counterfeit issue, they cannot do much, given no actual power and overlap of documents introduced by authorities. However, associations have made great contributions to communication with consumers on knowledge of preventing counterfeits as well as relevant applicable laws.

 

 When working with enterprises, we found out that they are reluctant to admit that there’s counterfeit of their products on the market, being supposed that consumers will consequently buy their products less. However, to some extents, they have joined hands with counterfeit to spread, which can lead to a more serious result that consumers can ostracize their products. Therefore, concepts of “protect ourselves” or “save ourselves first” etc are absolutely right to those who want to avoid risks and difficulties related to counterfeit in the current context. It is necessary for businesses to give more funds to this activity and assign specialized staff on counterfeit prevention.

 

Counterfeits in the market penetrate in many sectors and industries, from those of low value to luxurious ones, especially specialized goods concerning human health and life such as medicine, pesticide, building materials, food etc. Counterfeits are present in most big markets such as Hanoi, HCMC, others and have spread to rural, remote areas where low rank counterfeits are easily consumed. Tricks and techniques to produce counterfeits are more and more sophisticated while criminals are getting more daring and artful.

 

Since Vietnam Association for Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Mark Protection (VATAP) is not the key force in anti-counterfeit battle, its main tasks are to prevent counterfeits and goods violating intellectual property via communication by gathering enterprises and coordinating with implementing agencies , aiming to strongly support Governmental key force in this battle. At present, we are submitting to the Government, asking for delegation of higher power in anti-counterfeiting, particularly in establishing anti-counterfeit fund. The fund will operate with finance from punishment of counterfeit, national budget and consumer fee. It is used to pay for anti-counterfeiting staffs, which have been allocated such a small budget (resulting in low efficiency) despite large allocation for anti-counterfeit management agencies. In my opinion, national budget allocation on these activities will bring about high effectiveness. IN addition, the Fund will present award to units and businesses with good results of trade mark protection and anti-counterfeiting.

 

Yes, it is essential to socialize anti-counterfeiting, but much consideration is needed or else the situation will become more complicated. Despite the participation of many agencies in anti-counterfeiting activities, no one has been assigned the primary responsibility. Thus, upon effective coordination between anti-counterfeiting forces and associations as well as businesses suffering counterfeits, the result will be better.

 

However, given the appearance of more associations to socialize, there might be more complication, overlapping and unfair competition among “socialized” organizations. The Government should delegate more power to the Association to settle this issue. I myself hope that agenda on this orientation will be sped up for better anti-counterfeit activities.