Rosmar Skin Essentials joins E-Commerce MOU for more inclusive fight against counterfeit goods
November 2, 2024
The beauty and wellness brand Rosmar Skin Essentials has joined the E-Commerce Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to combat counterfeiting and help protect consumers from the health risks of consuming fake beauty products.
Rosmar Skin Essentials CEO Rosemarie Tan signed the MOU on October 15, 2024 accompanied by one of her IP and brand management lawyers.
Facilitated by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), the MOU provides an avenue for signatories to closely collaborate and directly notify platform members on possible IP violations, allowing a more efficient takedown of online posts selling counterfeit products or pirated content.
Deputy Director General Nathaniel S. Arevalo said the addition of an entrepreneur and social media influencer like Tan to the E-Commerce MOU shows the inclusiveness of the collaboration, welcoming any rights holders who’ve fallen prey to counterfeiting.
“With a social media influencer, the pool of E-Commerce MOU signatories is made more diverse and inclusive to show that any entrepreneur can suffer from the consequences of counterfeiting,” Arevalo said.
Despite the fierce competition of businesses online, Tan said “the battle is not really amongst brand owners because our real enemies here are the counterfeiters,” noting how counterfeit destroys the reputation of legitimate brands and puts consumers at risk.
The social media influencer and entrepreneur lamented receiving regular complaints from buyers who claim to have suffered from rashes and worsened acne after using counterfeit Rosmar Skin Essentials products, more particularly her Kagayaku soap, which is one of the store’s top-selling products.
She also shared how widespread counterfeiting is in online marketplaces and how these illegal traders could easily drive legitimate IP rights out of the competition.
“Mas kumikita pa po ang mga nagka-counterfeit kasi mura po benta nila [The counterfeiters make more profit because they sell at a lower price],” Tan said, sharing that one unauthorized seller alone claimed to make P150 million for selling a range of products under the Rosmar Skin Essentials brand.
To protect her brand more robustly, Tan has registered a number of her trademarks before the IPOPHL’s Bureau of Trademarks (BOT) as well as marketing content and advertising collateral with the Bureau of Copyright and Related Rights (BCRR) to improve the detection of infringing posts in the marketplace and solidify its fight against counterfeiters.
Rosmar Skin Essentials sells a wide variety of beauty and wellness products on Lazada, Shopee, Shopify and TikTok Shop.
Tan’s initiative to join the E-Commerce MOU brings the total number of signatories of the collaborative effort to 44. # # # (Janina Lim, Information Officer III)