APPS AND INFRINGEMENT
quick process and there is less rigorous checking that goes on compared with setting up a website. Tere are fewer checks and balances.”
While compliance and cooperation from Google and Apple is strong, “we’re dealing with sheer scale here”, explains Franklin.
“Apparently Apple’s App Store gets around 26,000 requests a week to launch new apps, so you can imagine the scale of the challenge it is for Apple to work through this in a proactive way.”
What’s more, it is relatively easy to set up an app, reducing the obstacles to attacking a brand. “It really is possible to go from zero, quickly acquire the skills and knowledge to develop an app, and publish it on the App Store within a relatively short time-frame,” Zamoyski points out.
Fighting the infringers
IP owners are well advised to work with brand protection companies, whose job it is to form a strategy for combating infringers, but only the most threatened may wish to seek help.
“It depends how vulnerable they are to the threat of infringement and how their consumers behave and purchase,” says Fred Felman, chief marketing officer at MarkMonitor.
“And I think there may be an evolution in processes as well here,” he adds, explaining that the young app market will filter out bad actors as it grows older.
“In the history of computing you tend to have proprietary platforms where single purpose applications emerge at
the beginning in these
platforms, and then standards emerge that allow you to exploit
to rely on very specific applications or operating systems.
“HTML 5 and other technologies, I believe, are going to standardise how mobile devices are used because it becomes impractical for app developers to create applications across Android and all the flavours of Android, as well as the iPhone and all the flavours of the iPhone.”
Tis means, says Felman, that we will use apps that are specific to a single task less and less.
“We will probably see some consolidation of apps on functionality as well. A good example is we used to buy separate spreadsheets and databases and email apps in word processors, and we don’t do that any more. We group functionality to allow us to do what we need to do more effectively. Some of that will happen on the mobile platform and some of them will emerge as trusted; these
16 Trademarks Brands and the Internet those platforms without having uFaker
Such consumer cooperation is probably vital for brands. To see it in action, we need to look no further than uFaker, an app launched this year by Jason Drangel of IP law firm Epstein Drangel in New York.
Te app is simply a reporting mechanism at the moment, allowing consumers to alert brands about suspected counterfeit goods, in reward for discounts on web purchases. Once a brand is notified,
it can log that information in the
uFaker database, found on the project’s website
www.ufaker.com, at which point the brand can instruct law firms to work on the case and advise customs about the suspicious goods. All parties can access the report in the database, updating it as they go along.
“We have had nearly 100 reports since July and more than 700 downloads of Drangel says.
the app,” Volume 2, Issue 2 olume 2, Issue 4
will be seen as clean, brightly-lit and safe places for us to interact.
“So we are in the process of crossing the technology chasm and we are in a tornado where there is a lot of change as the majority of people adopt smartphones and tablets. Te wind is going to die down and we are going to see some order come of this chaos,” Felman says.
Further, he notes that brands may need only to look to their consumers for help when fending off bad actors.
“What’s not always obvious is the democratisation of the monitoring and enforcement that is occurring, as the people who love these brands are helping the brands police themselves as well.”
“THE EASE WITH WHICH MOBILE APPS CAN BE REPLICATED OR ADULTERATED LEAVES USERS EXPOSED TO FRAUD, SECURITY BREACHES AND OTHER ACTS OF PIRACY.”
“Tis was an interesting test to see whether consumers would report and care or not, and they clearly do. We’re getting reports from all over the world and we’re not necessarily sure why people are doing it, but you can tell, depending on who the reporter is, why they’re doing it. Some consumers are concerned because they are paying the regular price or sometimes competitors are ratting on other entities that they know are selling counterfeit goods and are hurting their market share. It’s different people reporting.”
Although uFaker handles complaints from the ‘real’ world—a market on a high street, for example— there is no reason that consumers won’t observe the infringement of an app and report it through uFaker. Rovio, which makes the hugely popular Angry Birds game, one of the most downloaded apps, is one of uFaker’s clients, and one might expect complaints about the company’s oſt-pirated game to come flooding in, though uFaker hasn't received any such complaints yet.
uFaker is interesting because it shows that anti-counterfeiting efforts are moving from the meeting room to the mobile app. In future brands, lawyers and customs officials may not need to meet in person or even speak on the phone, at least until an investigation is underway. Tis approach will surely be welcomed, even if it is in its infancy.
“On the legal side of things, for anti-counterfeiting teams, there has never been anything like it,” Drangel says. “Te backend database is a great way for anti- counterfeiting teams to work together and coordinate information—that’s never really been done.”
Te world of apps is an intriguing one. Tey are changing the way we live and even how brand owners tackle infringers. With app usage expected to rocket, brands need to focus now on how they go about making the app world a safer place.
www.worldipreview.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44