EU looking into blockchain technology to fight against counterfeit goods

[Guest The Viking]

Original source: EUIPO's own website https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/observatory/blockathon

 

EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Propery Office) is launching a competition to use blockchain technology to fight against counterfeit goods. 

 

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Consumers are more and more confused about whether a product is authentic or not. In 2017, 10 % of EU consumers (approximately 43 million citizens) were tricked into buying a fake product instead of a genuine one.

 

[lots of text explaining what EUIPO and EU do to fight agaisnt fake goods]

 

However, even with this strong coalition, it is simply impossible to track every package and every shipment entering into EU territory at the current time. There are huge challenges, such as the massive amount of goods transported in small parcels, the bureaucracy involved and all the protocols and processes to be followed in different countries.

Furthermore, there are many tools, solutions and ways to fight counterfeiting but they work separately, are centralised, with little synchronisation and there is no way to connect all the relevant players: the EU, intellectual property offices, governments, customs and other enforcement authorities, manufacturers, retailers, shipping companies, ports and airports and, above all, us — the citizens.

In a nutshell, we need more synchronisation and decentralisation.

 

Basically whenever you buy abroad and something enters EU borders, it isn't always checked. Many of you may have bought from Aliexpress and such, and may never have had your package stopped by the customs.

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This is what the EUIPO, in collaboration with many other partners and organisations from both the public and the private sectors, is daring to explore. The aim is to link existing tracking solutions available in the market, as well as public databases of intellectual property, through a blockchain solution. The idea is to develop an infrastructure where anybody interested (producers, consumers, transport services, etc.) would be able to check the authenticity of any product openly and easily, as well as the possibility to alert rights holders to fakes. Perhaps one day you will be able to do all of this by just swiping your smartphone … dreaming is allowed.

 

The end goal is to have a mix of blockchain technology and existing methods to track goods more effectively and to be able to tell what is fake and what isn't.

 

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This illegal EUR 338 billion worldwide business is growing.

Bit out of context, true. Counterfeit goods aren't a small market. 

 

The contest is divided in three parts: Consumer, Customs Authorities and Logistics operator

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• For consumers, the rights holder is the source of goods ordered and the one to contact when there are any problems.
• For customs authorities, the rights holder advises when a product is fake or genuine and authorises the seizure of goods.
• For logistics operators, the rights holder is the client who trusts them with safe transport.

The rest of the info is on the website but it's overall just lots of explanations and blablabla. You can apply here: https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/observatory/blockathon/how-to-apply (though I'll guess you need to be an EU citizen). There are prizes for a total of 100 000 euros, but divided between the categories. I already see incoming eurosceptics and brexiters, but rest assured, EUIPO is entirely self-funded due to the fees you have to pay when registering a design. 

 

 

So, we are finally seeing some practical application of blockchain technology in real life/society. I think Linus mentioned in a past WAN show that Canada is also looking in implementing blockchain to track taxes and see what they were used for, but this seems much more interesting. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

I can't remember where I read it, but I recall an article where someone unwillingly bought a counterfeit good from Amazon. It got flagged at customs, but the person wasn't aware of what happened so they thought the order got lost. Come time when they want to travel and now they're on the TSA's [poop]list because they got dinged for trying to import a counterfeit.

 

So sounds like good news to me this is happening :3

[Guest The Viking]

4 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I can't remember where I read it, but I recall an article where someone unwillingly bought a counterfeit good from Amazon. It got flagged at customs, but the person wasn't aware of what happened so they thought the order got lost. Come time when they want to travel and now they're on the TSA's [poop]list because they got dinged for trying to import a counterfeit.

 

So sounds like good news to me this is happening :3

yes this happens very often. Not the blacklist part, just the part of the good getting stuck at customs.

 

In EU, if they stop your package at customs, open it and find a fake good inside, say, a pair of fake Nike's (happens alllll the time), they'll destroy them. That's the law. Otherwise, if it's like, technology or something, they'll make you pay the import duties+VAT. Though the notification takes forever to arrive and by then they got rid of the good.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, The Viking said:

yes this happens very often. Not the blacklist part, just the part of the good getting stuck at customs.

 

In EU, if they stop your package at customs, open it and find a fake good inside, say, a pair of fake Nike's (happens alllll the time), they'll destroy them. That's the law. Otherwise, if it's like, technology or something, they'll make you pay the import duties+VAT. Though the notification takes forever to arrive and by then they got rid of the good.

I glossed over the post, but is this affecting both imports and exports?

 

The article I read was based in the US and the item got stopped at US customs. If this can be used for exports too, that'd be cool. It'd save everyone else some headache.

[Guest The Viking]

24 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I glossed over the post, but is this affecting both imports and exports?

 

The article I read was based in the US and the item got stopped at US customs. If this can be used for exports too, that'd be cool. It'd save everyone else some headache.

I think right now it's limited to imports, and to check whether the product is real or not.

 

"it is simply impossible to track every package and every shipment entering into EU territory at the current time."

 

But I'll go and guess that, if they manage to use blockchain to track all packages and whether it's a fake or not, then you could easily use this to track packages in general instead of your typical barcode and therefore track exports too. But yes, there are a lot of fake US goods entering the EU market (meds and such), but we also export our share of fake stuff  some regions have, for example, a lot of... handbags and shoemaking? now chinese are also set up in those regions and produce their share of counterfeit handbags and such. Though chinese are the ones getting caught, I don't doubt the fact that many europeans are also involved in manufacturing fake goods.

 

This is simply the beginning though. Let's see how this works out, but to me, it seems we are yeaaaars away from a reliable, tracking system. The post services are still quite chaotic after all.

[DrMacintosh]

Block chain good

 

Crypto bad