Consumer Protection from Counterfeit Electrical Goods (Comparative Study)

Abstract

Abstract: Nowadays, electrical and electronic goods can be produced and put together in various countries. During the process, they might pass through different producers and suppliers before reaching the end consumers. It is crucial to ensure the safety, quality, reliability, and compatibility of these products and systems for their secure usage. Protecting the consumer from counterfeit electrical goods is one of the important topics, because it is related to all members of society affecting their safety, health, and even life. What is meant here by electrical goods is all the electrical and electronic goods that the consumer uses in going about his daily affairs, and counterfeit products include all products, including the packaging.

What complicates the matter for the consumer is that there are types of counterfeit electrical goods, but regardless of the type of counterfeit, partial or complete, all of them are a source of concern for the consumer because he does not have sufficient experience to distinguish between them and the original goods.

 When searching for the reasons for counterfeit electrical goods, it becomes clear that the reasons for counterfeiting are not from a single source, but rather there are several reasons behind it, including unfair competition between companies producing these goods, the need of consumers for electrical goods, the fact that counterfeiting is a profitable business, in addition to the high prices of original goods, the overwhelming advance of technology, intensity of international trade, and the emergence of new markets and electrical and electronic products.

 Consumer protection is ancient and finds its roots in Roman law, then successive legislation from French law to our present era in the laws of all countries of the world, in addition to international rules represented in treaties and agreements, including intellectual property rights laws and the laws of the World Trade Organization, as traditional principles cannot be dispensed with, but It is not sufficient at the present time, and therefore the law must keep pace with modern developments in all aspects.

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