HP has helped Malaysian authorities in the seizure of more than RM1.8m (US$566,305) worth of counterfeit printing supplies in Port Klang, Malaysia, as the company seeks to defend its brand against counterfeiting.
Jeff Kwasny, global brand protection and anti-counterfeit manager for HP printing and personal systems, said “HP vigorously defends its brand and intellectual property for original HP supplies by engaging in industry-leading anti-counterfeiting practices to combat the fraudulent manufacture, distribution, and sale of counterfeit HP supplies products.”
Police teams and officers from the enforcement division of the Malaysian Ministry of Domestic Trade seized more than 13,000 counterfeit supplies in the raid. The haul included 428 finished ink cartridges, 3,600 finished toner cartridges, 2,500 unfinished toner cartridges, 2,000 toner flat packages, 5,461 toner security labels and other equipment, supplies and machinery.
Kwasny said, “Our commitment to our customers is the driving force behind the vigilance of our anti-counterfeit team, as we understand how the sale of counterfeit HP products negatively impacts our customer and the HP brand. With counterfeit HP print cartridges, customers purchase what they often assume to be a genuine HP product, but they instead receive a cartridge that provides them with inferior print quality at best and often times a cartridge that fails to perform at all.
“Through our anti-counterfeiting efforts, HP is determined to protect our customers and our brand," he said, adding that a counterfeit product 'is a product that has been made to look identical to or substantially indistinguishable from the genuine or original product, usually for the purpose of deceiving consumers.”
He added, “The diligence of the HP anti-counterfeiting programme in the Asia Pacific region has resulted in law enforcement agencies successfully confiscating more than 20 million units of counterfeit cartridges and components in the last four years.”
