A new report paves the way to strong growth and opportunity for optical anti-counterfeiting and security technologies such as holography and micro-lens arrays in developing countries, according to a global trade body.
The International Optical Technologies Association (formerly the International Hologram Manufacturers Association) was commenting on the European Commission’s ‘Report on the Protection and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in third countries’.
According to the report, counterfeiting and piracy pose a serious risk to the EU economy. In 2023 alone, EU customs seized 17.5 million individual items with a total value of almost €811 million at the EU’s external borders. Online piracy has also shown increasing trends.
IPR infringements undermine the EU’s IPR-intensive industries, which contribute to almost half of the EU’s total annual GDP and generate more than 80% of EU exports, providing valuable and sustainable employment opportunities for society.
The protection of intellectual property is seen therefore as a key driver of economic growth – the EU Commission regularly monitors developments in third countries in relation to IPR protection and enforcement, as well as measures and actions taken by authorities in third countries, operators, service providers and marketplace owners.
This opens the door to fresh investment by national governments and law enforcement agencies in anti-counterfeiting and authentication devices such as holography, micro-lens arrays, micro-mirrors, plasmonics, nano-gratings, colour change, caustics, polarisation, photonic crystals, special print-generated effects, which IOTA says, are among some of the most active and effective technologies in IP rights’ protection.
Chair of the Association, Dr Mark Deakes, said: “The most obvious owners of intellectual property rights are brand owners, who own the brand names. These appear on many of the traded goods familiar to consumers around the world – the better known the name, the more valuable the brand and hence the IP associated with that brand.
“However, the EC report once again shows that brands and their associated IP stock, remain at risk from resourceful counterfeiters and criminals. Owners urgently need to invest to protect their brands, reputation and profits – and optical security technologies are among the most effective ways to do that.
“The ever-evolving anti-counterfeiting role of these technologies lies in their ability to combine authentication with detection; this is why the more enlightened brand owners in developing markets should consider them an integral part of their authentication plans.
“The use of authentication solutions, as advocated by the new ISO 22383:2020 standard, which offers guidelines for the selection and performance evaluation of authentication solutions for material goods, enables examiners to verify the authenticity of a legitimate product, differentiating it from fake products emanating from counterfeiting hot spots.
“Even those that carry a ‘fake’ authentication feature can be distinguished from the genuine item if that item carries a carefully thought-out authentication solution.”
