Dupe is an abbreviation of duplicate. It also means to deceive, to use unclean methods to achieve one´s own ends. In the field of trademarks and commerce, this term refers to products that mimic the appearance or results of luxury, recognized, and high-end brands, without using them as such, with a visually similar image, with legitimate brands, and pretending to be safe products.

Dupe products have had a great boom in social networks, especially in cosmetics and perfumery. They have become an attractive alternative for consumers, offering them cheap and good-looking options. Some influencers have even compared brand´s products against dupe, showing similar results, which makes the originals seem replaceable, although they do not delve into its quality, durability or formulation.

Multinational companies, whose main means of sale are online stores, have increased their presence and sales in the last two years. Therefore, it is very common to find in these websites garments with the same prints and patterns of prestigious brands, but at a lower price and with different quality, where the only differentiator is the brand or its absence.

There is a thin line between dupe, imitation, and counterfeiting of products, which poses a risk to intellectual property rights holders. Dupe not only provide equal results and are similar to other brands, such as cosmetics, whose presentations easily make them differentiable. They are also products such as clothing, shoes, glasses, and bags and that look dangerously similar to the originals, at least visually. The dupe is torn between being inspired by the designs of famous brands and imitating them. Some are even advertised as “products of dupe designers", crossing the commercially permissible and becoming an act of unfair competition, by using a product marketed by a third party to mold and reproduce another, using the designs of the intellectual creators, which also puts on the edge the rights of those authors.

Latin American legislation has valuable protection tools for holders of intellectual and industrial property rights. Some include more than logos and nominations, such as the registration of three-dimensional trademarks that protect the design of products, their packaging, their shape and visual image. Countries such as Mexico, for example, recognize the commercial image as a type of brand, it means that the protection includes elements such as size, design, color, label, packaging, and any other that makes the products distinguishable in the market.

In recent years, various initiatives promoted by the private and public sector have involved international organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the International Trademark Association (INTA) and the Inter-American Association of Intellectual Property (ASIPI, for its acronym in Spanish). Border control, the capacity of authorities and turning protection tools into effective actions has been promoted in order to strengthen measures that depend not only on the degree of protection of trademarks, but on the application and international and local efforts against piracy and unfair competition.

Undoubtedly, dupe is an issue that trademark holders cannot go unnoticed. If you want to know more about this topic, do not hesitate to contact us.