Digital Detective will keep all information on your company confidential
and helps you to minimize the losses due to the online sales of counterfeit
products and the deterioration of your trademark. We offer a worldwide
solution for a fraction of the loss in revenues.
Operating as an Internet Investigation & IP Protection Company, all on-line illegal activities can be traced and investigated. Your valuable intellectual property can be protected from all violations on the Internet.
Our highly specialized and experienced investigators can track all infringements on your trademark, copyright, patent and other assets.
Annually 10 % off all products in the marketplace is counterfeit. With the World Wide Web developing as the medium for global trade, consumers will develop their opinion on products and companies based on the information they can find on the Internet.
The online sales of counterfeit products, slander on opinion sites, the deformation of your company logo, parallel import and other infringements on your IP can be highly damaging to the Image of your company and products.
A well-developed strategy for the protection of your rights on the Internet is crucial for the value and image of your brand. Digital Detective is specialized in protecting these rights. We detect all online infringements and track all the data to uncover the organisation behind the websites. All personal information can be traced, saving your company's lawyers time and money and enable them to pursue the desired goals. BACK
Ddetective conducts the Domain Name Intermediationservice for some of its
clients. With this service we mediate between conflicting parties.
This intermediation results most of the time in favorable solutions for both
parties with less budget allocation.
Domain names containing a brand or product name are often registered by owners of replica or boycott sites or by domain-grabbers/ cyber-squatters (persons/ organisations that register thousands of domain names, in order to sell them for a high price).
Our intermediation services with these "offenders", enables brand owners to secure the domain name of their preference in a fast and cost effective way, maintaining the anonymity of the brand owner.
Beside Domain Name Intermediation, Ddetective also assists clients registering new domain names. This way our clients online Domain portfolio will be managed by only one company, instead of several companies as nowadays occurs a lot. Ddetective provides a domain specialist that is available 24/7 to help you with all your requests.
We are experienced in the registration of all kinds of domains, both gTLD and ccTLD extensions worldwide.
Our extranet will make it possible for clients to overview all domains purchased by Ddetective. Ddetective can also keep a nice overview and manage the clients domains. We have many years of experience with managing domain names for major companies, with no complaints.
Digital Detective will keep all information on your company confidential
Ddetective always adapts to the current online trends and industry;
and currently Social Media platforms are an upcoming venue for online criminals
to sell there infringing products. Ddetective has anticipated this move
and has a perfect solution for to tackle these problems.
In current times, the use of Social Media has become an essential part of daily online activities and unfortunately also a behaviour of online criminals to use these social platform to infringe your brand’s IP rights. Channels such as Facebook and Youtube have become a haven for online infringers to expose their goods and use these channels as another form of income.
Our Social Media Surveillance, monitors the most famous Social platforms worldwide and analysis the data containing your brand/ trademark/ copyright. Once we have determined the data as infringing, we can then act as followed (in agreement with client):
Our service is not limited to a Social Media Platform, so Ddetective can monitor, analyse and protect your Intellectual Property on any Social Media Platform.
Digital Detective can help you protect your goodwill and intellectual property
from all sorts of infringements, even the ones you hadn't thought of yet.
Our software continuously scans the Internet for all possible violations on your brand or company. Our detectives filter the results so only the relevant websites or infringements will be communicated to your legal department. Our service is not just a scan by a search engine that produces thousands of results. Because of the 'human touch', websites can also be scanned for infringing photos, slander, or any relevant detail for your company.
Companies aren't always aware in which ways their intellectual property can be violated on the Internet. This can cost them dearly due to loss in revenue, image damage, consumer confusion and in many other ways. These infringements may be:
All websites that are selected by our experienced detectives will be analyzed according to criteria determined by the client. These analysis will tell the client for example, the registrant of the website, the traffic, the provider, or any other details the client wishes to know about the website that is violating its intellectual property rights.
All the results will be published on our extranet along with screenshots of the websites and their analysis. This way the client can view the results anywhere and anytime. With the use of a password your people can use the results to take action against the people or (criminal) organizations that are illegally benefiting from your companies hard-earned goodwill and brand.
Thanks to our good relationship with the auction sites we are able to
de-list the infringing items within a couple of hours, or get information on
persons selling on the auction sites.
Auction sites are an ideal venue for people who want to sell their counterfeit, replica products or for retailers who want to earn some extra money by selling outside the authorized channels.
Thanks to the manual inspection of our investigators all irrelevant results are left out leaving only the true infringing products. These infringements are analyzed according to criteria delivered by the client. In these analyses you can view all information on the website and products that might be relevant to your company or product.
Our investigators all have a profound knowledge of legal issues regarding intellectual property rights and the Internet. If the client wishes so, we can take care of all complaints from sellers arising from the de-listing of their items. We can explain them their rights and duties to the brand owners, saving your legal people valuable time.
These results will be published on our extranet. With a special account and password all people indicated by your company can access these results and view the screenshots and analyses of the (counterfeit) products.
The combination of our manual selection of the results, the perfect accessibility of the results on our extranet, our relationship with the auction sites and legal knowledge of our investigators provides a total solution for the infringements on your brand, saving your company and personnel valuable time and money.
Whether it is your company name or one of your registered or unregistered trademarks,
we investigate those individuals behind the infringement and provide you sufficient evidence
to take appropriate action.
Brand abuse does not necessarily mean counterfeiting. Trademark infringement can be equally damaging. Goodwill and reputation associated with the products and services of your company can tempt others into cashing in.
We act both for patent attorneys and directly for clients. Whether it is a product, process or system patent, we can assist in securing the evidence needed to litigate and claim monetary damages, or to secure royalties from technology licensing agreements, or even to settle by mutual agreement i.e. technology sharing.
When considering taking legal action against an infringing party, there may be sufficient information from public sources to produce a patent claim and proceed with litigation. However, more often than not there is not enough information in the public domain to be certain that a product or process infringes a patent. An important decision then has to be made. Do you assume that a competitor is infringing your patent and proceed to litigate, hoping that during the discovery process you secure the information you need to prove your case? This approach can lead to problems: The courts may well dismiss the claim due to a lack of supporting evidence, or worse still, if during the discovery no evidence of infringement is found, the defendant is able to claim costs and damages.
Ddetective obtains the necessary evidence of infringement: - promotional material, technical drawings, documents, photographs, and video recordings as well as product samples. In order to assess potential damage claims, details of present and historical sales figures are obtained. We also gather intelligence regarding the structure of the organisation behind the infringement, their suppliers and the distribution network. In addition to individual investigations, we are also often asked to carry out market surveys to establish the extent and reach of infringing products.
The process we use is recognized in American courts as a legal way to
provide electronic files as evidence. There is no need to pay huge
amounts to public notaries for their services. Our Electronic Notary
Service provides the same solution in a much more time and cost effective way.
If case litigation becomes the best option to protect your brand, we can authenticate the evidence we collect. The process we use enables us to certify electronic files, such as infringing web pages and URL's, locking them in time and content for future validation.
This gives the material a unique "fingerprint", providing a secure cryptographic link between the copy and the original and securing the chain of custody. The unique certification code is widely witnessed by means of weekly publication in newspapers, making the files suitable for use as evidence in a courtroom.
Our internet investigators will retrieve as much information as possible about
the owner, the registrant, the web statistics, the locations of the owner or server.
When ordinary Cease and Desist letters do not accomplish the desired goal, we can provide extensive evidence for a law suit. Our internet investigators will retrieve as much information as possible about the owner, the registrant, the web statistics, the locations of the owner or server.
Networks of related criminal websites are identified and saved. All found and collected evidence is presented in a clear report.
This services in conducted on a "no cure, no pay" basis. If we cannot provide sufficient evidence in our report to litigate the responsible person(s), we will not charge any costs. aaaa
A judge presiding over a civil suit instituted by world-renowned watch manufacturer Rolex SA against a Libyan-based consignee company, has ordered the destruction of some 4,570 wrist watches after these turned out to be counterfeit.
The Swiss-based company
A judge presiding over a civil suit instituted by world-renowned watch manufacturer Rolex SA against a Libyan-based consignee company, has ordered the destruction of some 4,570 wrist watches after these turned out to be counterfeit.
The Swiss-based company filed proceedings against Al Khebra Shipping Company, with offices based in Misurata, following the discovery of the fake merchandise which had entered the Malta Freeport on board HS Paris on February 20.
Inspections by customs officials confirmed their suspicions that the watches, stored in the container which was meant for transshipment, were counterfeit. The local agent of the watch-making company certified the merchandise as such.
On the basis of evidence produced, the court presided over by Mr Justice Mark Chetcuti, declared that the counterfeit watches violated the intellectual property rights of the applicant.
For this reason, the court ordered the destruction of the merchandise within 90 days and ordered the Libyan consignee to foot all expenses relative to the carriage, storage, destruction, tally and customs fees relative to the cargo.
Lawyer Peter Fenech represented Rolex SA as special mandatary in the court proceedings.
In a similar case, presided over by the same judge, the court ordered the destruction of some 1,620 pairs of shoes bearing the Adidas ‘trefoil or three stripes device’ after these were likewise certified as counterfeit.
The shoes had been shipped to Malta by a Chinese company called ‘Yong Hua Int’l Trade Co. Ltd’, reaching Malta in June before their planned transshipment to Tripoli-based company ‘Alwad Asadk’.
Lawyer Antoine Camilleri appeared as special mandatary for the shoe-manufacturing companies International Marketing BV Amsterdam and Adidas AG, Germany.
Before we get into the meat of this article, a disclaimer: No, I don’t recommend actually investing in counterfeit designer bags. This column isn’t as much a “you should invest in this” as it is a history of interesting investments, such as&nb
Before we get into the meat of this article, a disclaimer: No, I don’t recommend actually investing in counterfeit designer bags. This column isn’t as much a “you should invest in this” as it is a history of interesting investments, such as cell phone air time that can be used to launder money. In this case, the investors are factory owners. With that said, let’s look at third shifts and counterfeit bags that could fool all but the most practiced of dealers.
To set the stage, imagine you are a Chinese factory owner. You have been contracted by Coach (COH)to produce 10,000 designer handbags. When your workers are done, you still have the materials to make more. Your contract is done; the materials can be thrown out. Except you have the workers who know exactly how to make the real thing, the machines that made the real thing, and the materials used to make the real thing. Why not simply make more and sell them out the back door, on the street, to tourists and locals alike? There might not be the same quality assurance, but what does that matter when there is money to be made?
Known as the “third shift,” “midnight shift,” or “ghost shift,” this is exactly what happens in some less scrupulous overseas factories. The workers take on an extra shift for more money, while the factory owners profit. And while it is not limited to designer handbags, it’s where the best counterfeits come from.
It’s not a new phenomenon, either. As the earlier Fortune article detailed, Too Inc. (ASNA), which runs the Limited Too line of clothing, discovered TJ Maxx (TJX) was stocking far more garments than Too, Inc. ordered from its factories in Asia. During a lawsuit to stop the sales, lawyers weren’t sure if the clothes were true counterfeits or the product of a third shift. The case settled in 2003, but not before a judge declared that third-shift goods were trademark infringement, but less serious than actual counterfeiting.
“You've taught a company to produce something,” an anonymous China-based investigator told Fortune, “and perhaps that's all those people know how to do. Just because you have agreements doesn't mean those people are going to stop doing what they've learned.”
In 2016, counterfeit goods was a global industry worth about $461 billion, so why wouldn’t a factory owner with questionable morals and definite means want a slice of the pie? In 2013, as much as 2.5 percent of the world’s trade was counterfeit goods, equivalent to the entire economy of Austria.
There’s also a market for people specifically looking for high-end counterfeits, with some 3 million consumers buying fake goods each year. As we discussed in a previous article, Coach’s Birkin bags start at $60,000 and can retail for around $200,000. Plus, over the past 35 years, their value has outpaced gold. It doesn’t take a supply chain management genius to see that there could be a demand for knock-offs in order to artificially inflate social standing. After all, people are always looking for less expensive versions of designer clothing. For the much lower cost of $900, you can look like you have a highly coveted Birkin bag, without paying the full cost for a real one. So what if the stitching is slightly off in the corners? Have any of your friends seen a real Birkin bag to compare it? Or, you could simply pass it off as a curiosity and conversation piece.
There is, of course, a dark side. Counterfeiting and trademark infringement, after all, are both illegal. In 2010, the BBC reported that Louis Vuitton initiated 10,637 aids and 30,171 anti-counterfeiting procedures worldwide, which resulted in the seizure of thousands of counterfeits.
In December 2016, a woman was found buying designer handbags from major department stores, and then returning counterfeits to TJ Maxx. The store, along with Neiman Marcus, lost about $400,000 in the scheme. Praepitcha Smatsorabudh was sentenced to 33 months in prison, $403,250 in restitution, and will likely be deported to her native Thailand as a result.
Because of counterfeiting, people train in how to spot counterfeit goods of high-end products. They look at minute details, tiny imperfections that reveal a lack of quality, even down to fake authenticity cards. Labels may not be perfectly straight; stitching can be sloppy. Plastic can be used in place of metal.
The next time someone stops you on the street of New York City and asks if you want a mostly fake designer handbag, pause for a second. It could very well be nearly, illegally, the real thing.
Below you can find a list containing a few of the major industries we support:
Pharmaceutical Companies;
International Law Firms;
Luxury Brands;
Entertainment Industry ;
Gaming companies;
Celebrities
and many many more...
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