世界遭遇中国山寨难题

    虽然数码产品的山寨市场规模很庞大，但还是比不上进入美国的山寨服饰。在2012年美国查获的所有山寨商品中，服饰所占的比重达到29%，电子产品只占15%。福德汉姆大学（Fordham University）时尚法律与知识产权教授苏珊•斯卡菲迪指出，山寨服饰的比重之所以超过山寨数码产品，原因很简单：“仿造一款手机需要的技术仍然比仿造一个手提包复杂。”

    有的山寨产品是在合法工厂里生产的，他们用“三班倒”的模式大量生产，然后等到合法产品生产完之后，就趁没人的时候把山寨产品从后门运走。也有些山寨产品纯粹是在与原产品没有任何关系的地下工厂里生产的。而且如今的消费者也越来越好骗了，其中一个原因就是互联网更容易使这些产品看起来像合法产品，而不是地摊货。另一个原因就是山寨产品的确很难分辨。

    斯卡菲迪说：“服装公司和数码产品企业要采取的措施差不多。”她提到了商标的重要性，同时表示在向工厂下单的时候一定要非常小心，另外还要教会海关人员如何识别山寨货。

    虽然各大品牌和政府机构为打击山寨使尽了浑身解数，但是消灭山寨就像要杀死一条九头蛇一样困难。奥克利眼镜公司（Oakley）品牌保护副总裁艾德里安•庞得森表示，服装饰品行业的第一道防线就是从源头上打击山寨厂商。他认为一旦山寨产品进入“商业流”，要打击它就要多花100倍的时间。他表示，去年奥克利公司和中国政府基本上每天都要突袭一家山寨工厂，但是现在无论在哪个大洲，奥克利公司每天照样还会查获大量中国造的山寨眼镜。

    庞得森说：“他们的运作方式跟贩毒网络差不多。”厂商会把产品的生产分散到好几个工厂，所以如果其中一家被抓了，其他工厂仍然平安无事。一旦产品生产好了，就会立即出货。同时庞得森认为，贸易批发商们也愿意承担储存和运输这些货物的风险，所以他们也会获得不菲的收益。

    山寨产品的运输网络已经扩展到了全世界。庞德森表示，奥克利公司的调查人员曾经在墨西哥南部城市阿卡普尔科见过10到15个山寨奥克利眼镜。他们顺藤摸瓜，追查到了巴拿马的一家委内瑞拉籍和一家哥伦比亚籍的借壳公司，这些借壳公司最远会把货运到墨西哥和委内瑞拉。

    庞德森还指出，要想打击仿冒Beats耳机和奥克利眼镜的山寨产品还需要不菲的人力成本。他说：“世界上任何一个政府都不可能允许一家合法工厂那样运营，也不会允许工人在那样的条件下工作——那真是非常可怕。”(财富中文网)

    译者：朴成奎  

    Despite the scale of the problem, there still seem to be fewer fake electronics than fake clothes and accessories reaching the U.S. Apparel and handbags represented 29% of all items seized in 2012 while 15% were electronics. Susan Scafidi, a professor in fashion law and intellectual property at Fordham University, says that the quantity of seized fashion goods still outstrips electronics for a simple reason: "It still takes more skill to craft a cellphone than to craft a handbag," says Scafidi.

    Knock-offs tend to be made in either a registered factory that makes them on the "third shift" after the legitimate product is made, shipping the counterfeits out the back door when no one is looking. Or then there's the purely clandestine factory that has no relation to the original product. Customers these days are also more easily duped, partly because the Internet gives items legitimacy more easily than a sale on a street corner would, and partly because they're harder to detect.

    "The measures that an apparel company has to take and an electronics company has to take are very similar," says Scafidi. She mentions the importance of trademarks, being careful when drawing up agreements with factories, and educating customs officials to spot fakes.

    Despite the best efforts of brands and officials, catching counterfeits is like slaying a hydra. Adrian Punderson, Vice President of Oakley Brand Protection says the apparel and accessories company's first line of defense is to attack production facilities. He estimates that once fakes get into the "stream of commerce" it costs approximately 100 times more to stop being sold. Yet Punderson says that during 2012, Oakley and Chinese officials raided a clandestine factory almost every other day. Despite that, the company is still making large seizures of counterfeit sunglasses from China, in locations on every continent.

    "They operate pretty much like you would see in a narcotics network," says Punderson. He says that manufacturers spread production between several factories, so if one gets raided the rest of the stash will still be intact. Once the goods are ready, they're immediately moved out. According to him, wholesalers are now the ones willing to take the risk of storing goods and moving them around, so they also have a larger share of the reward and the power.

    The network itself stretches across the world. Punderson describes how an Oakley investigator saw 10-15 pairs of counterfeit sunglasses in Acapulco, Mexico. They traced them back to a Venezuelan and a Columbian front company in Panama, which were shipping goods as far as Mexico and Venezuela.

    As always, there's a human cost to getting fake Beats headphones and Oakley Sunglasses at rock bottom prices. Says Punderson, "There's no way that any government in the world would allow a legitimate factory to operate that way -- in the conditions these people work in -- it's pretty frightening."