Africa-Press – Seychelles. Counterfeiting consumer goods involves the manufacturing and distribution of goods without the brand owner’s authorisation, often violating trademarks, copyrights and patents.
As the gatekeepers of international trade, customs authorities globally remain at the forefront in the fight against counterfeit goods, to protect both consumers and legitimate businesses from the widespread impacts of counterfeit products.
Enforcing this critical aspect of customs work, recently the Seychelles Revenue Commission (SRC) facilitated a dedicated session on anti-counterfeit, trademark, and intellectual property rights (IPR) delivered by Tebogo Motloutsi, an Associate of ‘Spoor & Fisher’, responsible for the African and Caribbean intellectual property portfolios of some of the world’s largest brand owners across main industry sectors.
The session held at the SRC head office guided the officers in attendance on how to look out for key indicators that will allow them to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit products from established brands such as Lacoste, Puma, Coach and particularly Havaianas.
Following seizure of a consignment of suspected counterfeit Havaianas slippers earlier this year, emphasis about this particular product was placed on throughout the training.
Allowing the officers the chance to learn further on how to conduct a full examination to detect counterfeit goods, product sample of the seized goods were also used during the training session.
The officers as part of the practical session had to verify and confirm based on applied techniques gathered if the product was counterfeit or genuine.
The session comprised SRC staff members from both tax and customs division including representatives from the Trade Division of the Ministry of Finance, Economic planning, Trade and Investment.
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