Anti-Counterfeit Friday

This is the thirds post in Afro-IP's ACF campaign designed to increase awareness of the problem in Africa.

The fake BlackBerry is surrounded by dozens of other shanzhai, or “bandit phones.” These cheap imitations of brand-name products, bearing names such as J-Max and Eurocell, are manufactured in mainland China and shipped in the hundreds of thousands across South Asia and Africa - Chungking Mansions, home of the ‘bandit phone’

Gallup surveys in sub-Saharan African countries underscore the growing health threat that counterfeit drugs pose - click here

 
Kenya is the biggest market for counterfeit goods and contraband in East Africa, says a new report accoprding to the Daily Nation here. The counterfeit industry, according to Termites at Work: A report on Transnational Organised Crime and State Erosion in Kenya, is worth Sh70 billion and rivals key foreign exchange earners tourism, tea and coffee.
 
Zimbabwe: Opposition party ZAPU SA has lambasted counterfeiting of its t-shirts by some unknown people in South Africa. The party's publicist also warned the public against being duped into buying fake party regalia and cards, as reported by the Zimbabwean here.
 
Two raids by the Nigerian Police and the Nigerian Copyright Commission at the behest of Microsoft Corporation have been reported in Nigeria:
 
The premises of IPS Plus Solution Limited, a computer reseller at Veterans Plaza, located in Yaba, were raided following a consumer tip-off, an undercover test purchase and a subsequent petition to the local law enforcement authorities by Microsoft Corporation. The raid took place on 14 September 2011 and the matter has been handed to the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) for further investigation.
 
Separately, officials from the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) raided the premises of a local software reseller in Port Harcourt following a complaint made to Microsoft by a consumer after he was sold counterfeit software. The raid resulted in the seizure of 269 units of suspected high and low quality counterfeit products, ranging from computer games, music, anti-virus software, and Microsoft Windows and Office. Microsoft have an educational portal on how to detect if you have counterfeit software, located here.

The South African counterfeit industry is estimated at approximately R362bn and is viewed as one of the world's fastest growing industries, with seizures of fake goods up 46% annually according to litigator Nishan Singh at attorneys, Adams & Adams. News24