Corporate Brand Protection

Counterfeiting and piracy are growing at an astounding rate. Our team of investigators works closely with brands, law enforcement, and corporate counsel to identify alleged frauds and bring them to justice.

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Why brand protection matters

0Million

Job losses globally due to counterfeiting and piracy

$0Billion

in lost revenue by U.S. companies due to pirated software

$0Billion

Total cost of IP threats to domestic companies

Investigating and Pursuing Brand Infringement and Malpractice

What would happen if someone stole your product, design, or intellectual property (IP) and used it without your permission? Do you have the resources and strategy in place to investigate and protect you most valuable asset?

Threat actors' tactics are continuously evolving. Today, criminals are using deception more than brute force to break your security defenses. The cost of the damages caused by impersonation and phishing attacks on brands has gone up exponentially over the last decade.

The digital first economy, where consumers and businesses increasingly rely on digital interactions with brands for banking, shopping, social interaction, parcel delivery and other everyday activities, makes this kind of activity highly profitable. Digital brands can be easily exploited by attackers, because users place a huge amount of trust in them.

For example, even unsophisticated attackers can easily register a domain that looks very similar to yours and create a fake website that is virtually identical to yours. Stealing credentials, personal information, sensitive data and money is possible when attackers lure customers, partners, suppliers and even employees to the site via email. It's difficult to spot spoofed websites because they are outside of your perimeter. Web gateway defenses can protect employees from visiting suspicious websites, but how do you inform and protect partners and customers who are outside of your perimeter?

To take a more proactive approach for brand protection, organizations need solutions that can identify live attacks and spot fraudulent activity and other potential threats before they become a crisis. That's where The Chesley Brown Group can help.

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How to protect your brand

It's important for brands to know how to keep intellectual property protected. Counterfeiters will use any and all tactics at their disposal to target companies they think can profit from. Luckily, there are a number of free strategies that brands can implement to help them in the fight against illegal activity.

Register your IP – Without formally registering intellectual property, there is very little real legal recourse for brands who suffer from IP theft. In fact, without trademarks formally registered, counterfeiters would even be free to rip off logos and brand names. Establishing a brand protection strategy starts with getting intellectual property registered.
Educate your customers – Customer education can be used to great effect in brand protection in two ways. Making customers aware of the differences between authentic products and fakes will help them avoid getting tricked. Educating people on the overall harms of counterfeiting will also make them less likely to seek out grey market products.
Fight rogue websites and social media accounts– Rogue websites are and bad listings are set up for malicious or criminal purposes. They have a number of variations that are potentially damaging to brands. You can fight this by registering relevant domain names to your brand, using tools like online monitoring, and removing harmful sites as part of your online brand protection strategy.
Have a strong social media presence – Social media platforms are an important medium for counterfeiters, brands need to maintain a strong presence to establish themselves as authentic. It's important to use on-site reporting and undercover accounts to remove bad actors from social media.
NDAs with partners – This is especially important for brands with patent-protected designs and processes. Simply put, a brand can be put at risk by agreeing to work with other companies who do not have confidentiality protections.

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Getting Started

Due to the highly interconnected nature of the economy modern brand protection often require a cross-functional of team of legal, compliance, risk, cyber and security experts. The services offered by most brand protection providers can be summed up as four general practices:

Detection
Validation
Enforcement
Reporting

Companies must balance public perception, longstanding customer policies (and expectations), and financial liabilities against their desire to pursue bad actors who are simply riding on their coattails. It is a difficult balance to strike, so that's why we've made it so easy to get started. Here's how:

01

Schedule a Strategy Call

Our first job is to gather as much information as possible about your organization's unique challenges and concerns.

02

Create a plan

After studying the problem, our team of experts will get to work crafting a bespoke strategy that protects all aspects of your business, and enables continued growth.

03

Let’s execute that plan together

We’ll work directly with you and your stakeholders to implement and manage your new strategy, helping you navigate any pitfalls along the way.

What are you waiting for?

Let's Talk!

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Do I Need Brand Protection?

If you sell a trademarked product, then you are potentially at risk of counterfeiting, and you need to seriously consider a brand protection strategy.

Having said that, there are three main types of companies that are at an especially high risk of being targeted by counterfeiters:

Product innovators
Brand value companies
Design-focused companies

The huge investment of time and effort they put into building a respected brand, running their products' research and development, and carefully designing their products before they're even launched is one of the reasons these companies are so often at risk of counterfeiting.

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Summary

Domain theft and IP theft occurs every day in the United States, and many companies are completely unaware. Our brand protection experts are here to help ensure that never happens to you. For over 30 years we've helped some of the most recognizable brands in the world protect their most vital assets. Never lose another night's sleep worrying "what-if." Our experts will help you anticipate and a navigate risk before it becomes a crisis, so you can focus on your business. Click below to learn more about our brand protection services.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Our corporate partners often have lots of questions. We have gathered the most common ones together with responses directly from our team of experts. If you have ever wondered whether your company or organization needs a corporate investigator, this will hopefully help you find the answers you need.

Why do companies hire corporate investigators?

Corporate investigators can uncover facts about any specific problems your company has through interviews, interrogation, and data analysis; identify facts and corroborate complaints within a written report with the facts surrounding the situation, equip you with options to deal with the offending employees, or bad actors and provide guidance on how to improve business operations to avoid recurrence.

What are the most common problems that companies have with employees?

Personal problems of employees such as substance abuse or gambling, inner-office relationships, complaints of racism or sexual harassment, intellectual property theft, disruptive divorce proceedings, moonlighting, criminal charges, conflicts of interest, personal use of corporate resources, excessive sick time, workman's comp or fraud are generally the most common issues we see.

How can employees be questioned without risking or disclosing of the investigation?

Conducting effective witness interviews can be one of the most demanding steps in an internal corporate investigation. At Chesley Brown we rely on the investigative experience of our prosecutors and former federal agents to develop investigative strategies based on the specific facts and circumstances involved in each investigation we handle.

What if an investigation shows evidence of employee misconduct?

If an internal investigation of the company shows evidence of employee misconduct, generally this means that several actions will be taken immediately. Depending on the specific misconduct in question, this could include any combination of the following:

Update company policies and procedures
Taking corrective action internally
The discipline of the employee (or employees) involved
Self-disclosing the issue to the appropriate federal authorities.

How should companies deal with federal regulators when investigations discover corporate wrongdoing?

How a company deals with federal regulators requires a measured, strategic, and forward-thinking approach. If the wrongdoing triggers an obligated self-disclosure, federal authorities are already investigating your company's business or registration practices, or there's a chance that a federal investigation can happen soon, the risk management team of the company will need to make informed decisions and engage an external adviser to chart a course of action that mitigates the risk of civil or criminal penalties or reduces exposure.

Additional Resources:

Risk Takers Podcast Series Episode 1 - Aldrich Ames Spy Case
https://chesleybrown.com/the-risk-takers-podcast-series-launches-today/

Risk Takers Podcast Series Episode 1 - Surveillance Detection Routes (SDRs)
https://chesleybrown.com/the-risk-takers-podcast-series-launches-today/

Safe Passage / Safe Travel
https://chesleybrown.com/corporate-investigation-services/safe-passagetravel/

Corporate Brand Protection

Why brand protection matters

0Million

$0Billion

$0Billion

Investigating and Pursuing Brand Infringement and Malpractice

How to protect your brand

Getting Started

01

Schedule a Strategy Call

02

Create a plan

03

Let’s execute that plan together

What are you waiting for?

Do I Need Brand Protection?

Testimonials

General Manager

General Managed

Summary

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why do companies hire corporate investigators?

What are the most common problems that companies have with employees?

How can employees be questioned without risking or disclosing of the investigation?

What if an investigation shows evidence of employee misconduct?

How should companies deal with federal regulators when investigations discover corporate wrongdoing?

Additional Resources:

Additional Chesley Brown Solutions

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