Last year Brother International Europe fought across Europe with more than 40,000 violations.
Protecting Brother’s intellectual property has become a major issue for us. It is not only about the global protection of our trademarks, copyrights and patents, but also the protection of our customers and their trust in our products and brand.
Partnering with brand agency Incopro in 2021, Brother reported more than 28,000 online listings infringing our trademarks and copyrights, as well as 16,000 misleading displays across Europe. We have also taken action against more than 80 sites that misused the Brother brand, were infected with malware, or were involved in fraudulent activity.
Our efforts are focused on large markets such as Amazon. In 2021, Brother removed 990 ASINs (the Amazon Standard Identification Number) for trademark misuse and 148 ASINs for patent infringement in EU countries with Amazon.
Isao Noji, President and CEO of Brother International Europe Ltd, explained: “Protecting Brother’s intellectual property remains one of the most important topics for Brother. In 2021, we discovered more than 40,000 copyrighted ads that were misleading and could harm our customers.
Working with several investigative agencies and lawyers, we have also discovered, investigated and taken action ten cases of fraud that are part of the counterfeiter network this year.
This is very important to note, as customers can purchase what they consider genuine Brother products in good faith while searching for the right offer, without knowing that they are in fact counterfeits. Which is why at Brother we are constantly investing in these activities to protect our customers and their investments.”
Last year, Brother also launched a stronger anti-counterfeiting program to deal with the large influx of counterfeiters both online and offline, while encouraging customers and partners to:
If Brother customers are concerned about this and wish to report an alleged counterfeit product, they can do so by visiting www.brother.com/id or by contacting Brother directly: [email protected]