Digital technologies contribute to healthy development of China's anti-counterfeiting industry

As new anti-counterfeiting technologies keep emerging over the recent years, digital solutions have been widely applied in the anti-counterfeiting of products, tickets and certificates, which contribute to the sustainable and healthy development of the Chinese anti-counterfeiting industry.

For instance, each book under the protection of a book anti-counterfeiting and track & trace system has its unique identity information; tea brands are employing block chain, QR codes, miniature texts and images as well as VOID labels to fight fakes; manufacturers of dietary supplements have labeled their products with scratch-off anti-counterfeiting stickers with QR codes, which prove the authenticity of the products.

A consumer scans a QR code on a bag of edible salt to check the authenticity information. (Photo from the official account of Huizhou Salt Industry Group on WeChat)

In China, a laser hologram label and a QR code can be found on each bag of edible salt sold on the market. To obtain product authenticity information and track the production and circulation of the salt, all a consumer needs to do is to scan the QR code.

Over the recent years, the China Salt Association has been requesting producers of edible salt to upload the information of every bag of salt they produce onto a national edible salt tracing service platform the association established, so that the origin and circulation of the salt can be tracked, and responsible parties would be called to account once problems happen.

Brand value has been considered increasingly important as market economy develops in China. However, it is also triggering illegal activities.

According to an official with the China Trade Association for Anti-counterfeiting, products made by renowned manufacturers and coming with high market shares and profitability are always counterfeited. For example, some generic brands of milk powder are selling their products with a strategy of copycat packaging, and adulterated alcohol is sold in recycled bottles of renowned liquors.

Today, these counterfeiting methods can barely exist any longer as more and more anti-counterfeiting technologies are developed.

Citizens scan QR codes to learn information about vegetables in a supermarket in Yingdong district, Fuyang, east China's Anhui province. (People's Daily Online/Wang Biao)

The Fujian branch of Quantum Cloud Code, a Shenzhen-based provider of enterprise digitalization solutions, has developed an anti-counterfeiting and track & trace system for international smart bathroom brand JOMOO. Thanks to the system, every kitchen and bathroom accessory produced by JOMOO comes with an anti-counterfeiting label that is extremely difficult to be duplicated. More importantly, the label still can be read and show authenticity information even 90 percent of it is worn out.

Insiders believe that anti-counterfeiting labels and QR codes adopted by enterprises have well regulated market competition.

Today, anti-counterfeiting remains an important method to safeguard fair competition in the market and plays a unique and irreplaceable role in protecting brands and intellectual property rights, in protecting the rights and interests of enterprises and consumers, and in building the social credit system.

An official with the China Trade Association for Anti-counterfeiting told People's Daily that China is currently home to more than 1,200 enterprises engaged in the anti-counterfeiting industry, which generate a total output of more than 150 billion yuan ($20.96 billion) and produce over 360 billion anti-counterfeiting labels each year.

These labels are used by hundreds of thousands of brands and enterprises on a wide range of products, such as liquors & tobaccos, edible salt, farm produce, food, medicines, agricultural supplies, child care supplies, cosmetics, leatherware, clothes, electronics and home appliances, auto parts, construction materials and furniture.