Brand protection

Eliminating diversion, gray market, or product theft and resale, are generally considered as well as part of a brand protection strategy, even though an intellectual property may not be necessarily infringed.

For large organisations, an effective brand protection strategy requires collaboration and cooperation between departments, functions, and geographies, as well as with external stakeholders such as customs, law enforcement agencies, governments, industry partners including competitors, retailers and online marketplaces, and suppliers.

[8][7] It requires training of personnel and the development of a company culture of managing sensitive information carefully, both internally and externally.

[12] ISO standard 12931 provides guidelines and performance criteria to help brand owners define the particular authentication elements for either the packaging or material good itself, based on a counterfeiting risk analysis.

[19] There are ways to address this fraud, for example by encouraging users to authenticate through visiting a trusted channel such as the brand owner's website or social media account.

[20] A number of techniques exist, such as digital watermarks and secure graphics which are added into QR codes to make them robust against copy, and an app can be used to authenticate.

[7] The implementation of track and trace solutions to capture events as goods move through the legitimate supply chain helps to monitor and detect illicit activities.

The control of ordered quantities of products or components from third party suppliers can be made by providing them with secure serialised labels which must be affixed to each item.