Anti Copying in Design (ACID), the UK’s leading design and intellectual property (IP) advocacy organisation, and SnapDragon Monitoring, an online brand protection and reputation management specialist, have forged a strategic partnership aimed at safeguarding design businesses from the perils of counterfeits and IP infringements.
Counterfeiting poses a significant threat to all industries, as counterfeiters continually exploit genuine brand success to produce low-quality imitations of coveted products, states SnapDragon, whose recent survey discovered that nearly 20% of UK SMEs have fallen victim to counterfeit product sales, resulting in severe financial losses for 93% of them. Moreover, £13.6b worth of fake goods infiltrated Britain in 2020, causing legitimate businesses to lose sales totalling £9b.
The collaboration between ACID and SnapDragon aims to combat these issues by offering guidance, advice, and technical monitoring to protect assets. Leveraging SnapDragon's AI platform, Swoop, SMEs can continually scour the web to detect brand threats, infringements on registered and unregistered IPRs, and counterfeit product listings. They can then take swift action to remove these threats before they damage sales, brand reputation, or customer safety.
IP protection advocate ACID, which celebrating its 25th anniversary, complements this by offering creators and the design community tools for protection, deterrence, and education.
Dids Macdonald OBE, co-founder and CEO of ACID, says: "Imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery, especially when it has the potential to jeopardise sales, brands, and safety. This partnership empowers organisations to act swiftly on IP infringements and eliminate them from the internet, providing a robust resource for small and independent businesses battling the counterfeit threat.”
To mark the partnership's launch, SnapDragon and ACID are hosting a live event on 9th November at 12.30pm – all are welcome to register here and watch Dids and Rachel discuss their backgrounds and collaborative efforts to protect designers and creators.
Rachel Jones, CIO, and founder of SnapDragon Monitoring, acknowledges the significant counterfeit problem, stressing that it affects businesses of all sizes: “Counterfeits are a huge problem, yet traditional brand protection has always been geared towards bigger businesses, though counterfeits affect companies of all sizes. It doesn’t matter if you are a global enterprise, or a small boutique designer, if you have developed a product, you hold the rights to its ownership, and fraudsters should never get away with banking on your success. We are in the business to support these organisations, offering them accessible brand and IP protection to help them keep the products they have worked tirelessly to create safe.”
