Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement Manual - Ipr-policy.eu

Brand Protection Manual
Epson America, Inc.
Epson America, Inc., offers an extensive array of award-winning image capture and
image output products, including color ink-jet printers, scanners, LCD multimedia
projectors, and monochrome dot matrix printers. Epson’s branded products are
designed for a variety of customer environments including business, photography, government,
audiovisual, graphic arts, and the home.
Counterfeiting and piracy, as they do for most companies today, provide interesting
challenges for Epson. While technology gets more and more sophisticated, so, too, do the
counterfeiters. Sharon Kreps, Epson’s channel marketing manager, says, “Manufacturers who
think their products are free and clear of this problem are living in a dream world. I still get
disbelief when we talk about counterfeit ink-jet cartridges. People don’t realize that everything
in your everyday life can be counterfeit.” Epson is not sitting by idly while its products are
hijacked. The company is employing a number of tactics to protect its brand reputation.
Epson started using authentication and tracking technologies in the late 1990s, beginning with
an embossed hologram label and then moving to a color shift label. The company’s most overt
use of authentication was initiated in 2004 with the addition of a regional photopolymer
hologram in its Latin American products, where it had persistent problems with counterfeiting.
Kreps explains, “In the United States, our product is primarily sold through major retailers.
In Latin America, it goes through small distributors or dealers, and they asked us to give them
a secondary form of authentication that they could display to validate themselves as genuine
reputable dealers essentially an overt badge of authenticity.”
Finding a Solution
When sales deviated negatively from historical patterns, Epson knew that it had to find real
solutions to its Latin American counterfeiting problem. Although the company has an internal
team dedicated to the issue, it sought outside expertise to help evaluate and assess options.
When interviewing different technology vendors, Epson encouraged them to be creative in
their presentations. It wanted to see security features available in a particular size based on the
packaging, a variety of options for the area predetermined for the security feature, and a
targeted price range. After extensive research and interviewing, Epson decided on the DuPont
Izon Photopolymer hologram. “It was selected based on a combination of ease of overt
verification, perceived security, cost, and automatic application,” says Kreps. This security
feature appears on all ink, ribbons, and laser consumables sold in the Latin America market.
Putting It to the Test
Once the new technology was in place, it was time to roll it out to distributors, retailers, law
enforcement officials, consumers, and other key groups. The focus was first and foremost to
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