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• F. Future Trends

• Intellectual Property Policy

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• Theft of Intellectual Property

• Consultant's Report

F1. It is the author's view that piracy and counterfeiting of goods will increase worldwide for the following reasons:

1. The increasing cost of development of more sophisticated software and other products.
2. The reducing cost of replicating sophisticated products.
3. The globalisation of brands and the desire of consumers to have and be seen to have goods bearing such brands.
4. The globalisation of entertainment and the desire of consumers to experience such entertainment.
5. The reducing cost of international trade, and the reduction in restrictions in international trade.
6. The globalisation of the underworld because of the ease of travel and communication.
7. The continual periodic breakdown of law and order in various regions of the world because of political unrest and economic recession.
8. The ability to sell via the Internet means greater opportunity to purchase without prior inspection, and from sources less easily traced.

F2. As New Zealand becomes more open to international communication, trade and travel, our country will become increasingly attractive as a destination for pirate and counterfeit goods. The increasingly global outlook and cosmopolitan nature of New Zealanders means that more and more of our people will be willing customers for counterfeit goods, or at least for goods which are of the kind that are readily counterfeited.

F3. Improved technology can assist in combatting piracy and counterfeiting, such as discrete codes and holograms embedded in genuine products, but at the end of the day it does not take long for counterfeiters to imitate or work around this as well.

F4. A recent example of the current state of the battle over use of technology to combat counterfeits is the burglary of a software plant in Britain where all that was taken was large quantities of Certificates of Authenticity. These were sold with counterfeit software, to dupe consumers into believing the software was genuine. In fact the stolen Certificates were used with software different from that identified by the Certificates, which led to their detection.