VDMA7.3 billion euros in losses due to product piracy
Product piracy and know-how theft continue to cause considerable damage to German machine and plant manufacturers. China remains the biggest counterfeiter by a wide margin. The VDMA presented the latest figures on this at the Hannover Messe 2018.
© VDMA
The VDMA has been compiling the 'Product Piracy' study every two years since 2003. This year, for the first time, a change in counterfeiting became apparent: whereas previously the focus was more on technical replicas, imitations of the external appearance or entire brands are now increasingly becoming a problem in order to be able to participate in the good image of a company through visual imitation.