Over three million counterfeit products of more than 30 renowned brands were confiscated in Dubai within a week after Dubai Economic Department (DED) raided four warehouses in the emirate as part of its strategic focus to protect intellectual property and the rights of trademark owners and consumers.

One of the warehouses had a stock of over one million pieces of counterfeit products — including phone accessories, ladies' handbags, clothes, leather goods, ink, printers, cosmetics, watches and contact lenses.

Around 928,000 items, including duplicate phones and accessories, were seized from the second warehouse, while the third had over 700,000 replicas of five international perfume brands.

The fourth was found to have 252,000 pieces of counterfeit perfumes, cosmetics and cleaning products.

Ibrahim Bahzad, Director of Intellectual Property Rights Protection in the Commercial Compliance & Consumer Protection (CCCP) secion under the DED said his team took 14 days to investigate and act after receiving information on the stocked counterfeits

IPR protection

The raids reaffirm the role of the Intellectual Property Rights Protection team in safeguarding trademarks against any infringement, he added.

"The Dubai Economic Department is committed to translating the directives and vision of the Government of Dubai to promote economic activity. Combatting commercial fraud and protecting goods and services against duplicating their brand or logo are part of the strategic objective of Dubai Economy to improve confidence among businesses and investors and enhance overall competitiveness in Dubai," Behzad said

He added that the raid took more than 48 hours as the officials diligently screened and sorted out each piece to ensure transparency and impartiality in the process.

"People promoting and selling counterfeits use innovative tricks. Some of them import the goods in pieces and then assemble it here, and they even use remote or misleading locations to stock such goods.

"We work closely with global brands to train our inspectors in identifying counterfeits and we update trademark owners on local developments in combatting counterfeiting," Behzad said

The Intellectual Property Protection team holds regular meetings with major international brands to share knowledge and their experiences in the fight against counterfeits.

Co-operation with other competent government entities is also sought while carrying out inspections

source : gulfnews