Counterfeited products are everywhere – from fake designer clothes to jewelry, cars and even the antiques. Today, you can’t be 100% sure that the product you paid for is original. The problem to protect authorship and property rights is so urgent today, as it has never been before. The need to guard products against counterfeiters is as old as the world itself. In the past and now, artists have been making signatures on their paintings to indicate authorship. But let’s be honest, such method is of no avail. Hundreds of years later, and we still have to face the same problem that now concerns every aspect of our life. Counterfeiting forges ahead, bringing millions of dollars to shady dealers.
Today, manufacturers protect their products with serial numbers, trademarks, and brands, though they are inefficient. The number of forgeries increases over time, and neither big companies nor small businesses are protected from it. According to OECD & EUIPO research, counterfeited products amount up to 5% of all EU imports and worth up to €85 billion. When we look at the global imports the amount increases to 2,5% and $461 billion a year accordingly. Nobody is protected from counterfeiting as it is spread across all industries and certificates.
EmerDPO dSDK by Emercoin
Companies resort to innovative technologies for protection as the traditional methods used to validate and authenticate ownership via written records and license keys are burdensome and open up the possibility of fraud, counterfeiting, and even theft.
Emercoin offers to use blockchain to solve the problem of counterfeiting. EmerDPO is a dSDK for verification of Digital Proof of Ownership for both physical and digital goods and services.
EmerDPO creates a digital certificate confirming the authenticity of a particular object, product or service. Unique numbers are assigned to any property and users can claim a right for them. The data is stored in the blockchain, and any user can view it. The changes in the blockchain are made with the consensus of its members; therefore the recorded data cannot be erased, only the owner can modify it. Blockchain is suited to storing of important documents including ones for cars, land, software licenses and many others. Anyone can check such records for authenticity.
EmerDPO offers benefits for both manufacturers and consumers:
- protection of products and services from forgery improves the reputation and increases customer trust;
- digital passports are forgery-resistant and can record everything that happens to a product – from supply chain to manufacturing and selling;
- creation of a close relationship between customers and manufacturers;
- protection of brands from reputation damage.
Fake diplomas are a pressing problem for every industry, educational institution, employer, and employee. Yearly about 200 000 degrees are bought around the world, states Employers Choice Screening. The price for fake diplomas is between $500 and $2,500. It is clear that is costs a lot less to a buy diploma that to get a real one. It is not only unfair in relation to graduates but also imposes a high risk, especially when we talk about medical stuff and lives that could be lost as a result of unqualified treatment. Let’s admit, we trust people and not always check their credentials, allowing them to use our trust to their advantage. Only 20% of employers bother themselves with diplomas verification of job applicants. Emercoin team is working to resolve the problem.
EmerDPO Antifake Program
EmerDPO Antifake Program is a full-fledged service that can be used by manufacturers. It is a tagging system that uses Emercoin blockchain to create and store unique IDs for every product that comes off their production line. They are stored in secure Emercoin blockchain where anyone can access them.
Digital passports can be used:
- by a manufacturer to monitor all events occurring to a product during its lifetime, e.g., manufacturing, supply, sale, resale, service, repair, etc.;
- to ensure the confidence among customers, who prefer to buy products from manufacturers with a high level of forgery-resistance measures;
- to create an easy to establish and use communication channel between brand and customers;
- to help brands better understand their customers and to offer them loyalty bonuses or other incentives like discounts, extended warranties, etc.;
- to protect products from being resold without notice or from being stolen as it is easy to identify such products by unique IDs.
Emercoin provides a Serial Number Publisher that automates the process of placing serial numbers into the Emercoin blockchain from a table in CSV format.
QR codes are printed on labels or tags that manufacturer applies to produced products. Customers in the store scan the code with a smartphone and if the product is genuine and has not been sold previously then a page with information on the item are displayed. If the product is not authentic, the error is displayed. Thus, anyone trying to forge the goods cannot make a valid serial number without the cryptographic keys that belong to the manufacturer.
Optionally, another QR code – the purchase code – may be placed inside the package or under the first one. This code can provide access to another page for a customer to register the purchase and to claim ownership rights. The company may ask to create an account, provide personal information and answer additional questions. If the product is resold, the information in the digital passport is updated accordingly.
Names are added to the Emercoin blockchain via and stored in EmerNVS (Name-Value Storage). The price of adding a new record is approximately 0.002 EMC and fluctuates in accordance with the price of coins.
Blockchain-based solutions have many advantages over traditional services. A wide range of Emercoin dSDKs provide means to create innovative, secure and reliable applications to store data and protect it as well as property and goods from manipulation, fraud, and theft. EmerDPO is only one of many examples of how blockchain can influence our everyday and working life.
