Fake sunglasses flood market ahead of 2010 World Cup
08 Sep '06
2 min read
2010 Soccer World Cup is just three years from now and its impact can be easily found in South Africa as it has already become a target of counterfeit articles which carry the tournament logo.
Police have so far seized 19,500 pairs of sunglasses worth R6 million having 2010 logo from Port Elizabeth harbour till Thursday.
A report on the violation of Intellectual Property Rights ranks South Africa at 16th place among the top 20 countries and in 2005 alone, copyright owners around the world suffered losses to the tune of $15 billion (R110 billion).
An attorney at Spoor & Fisher, a Pretoria law firm specialising in patent, trade mark and copyright, Paul Ramara said that copyright violations caused great damage to owner's income.
His firm is representative of trade marks like Puma, Adidas, Diesel and Hugo Boss. He informed that it is foreigners who buy fake goods in Dubai and China and the sale of such goods constitutes around five to seven percent of world trade.
Ramara said that the extinction of textile industry in South Africa is an example of damage the dumping of fake goods can cause and the bad image the country spreads across the world.
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