Kenya’s battle against counterfeits
In simple terms, a counterfeit is a product that imitates the genuine one and constitutes an infringement of IP rights. This vice is a global concern that denies IP owners their deserved benefits, the result of their resilience, innovation, and financial effort.
Due to its geographical position, bordering Somalia, Uganda, and Tanzania, and its proximity to the Asian sea, Kenya may be deemed as an appealing key distribution point for counterfeit products.
According to the Kenyan Anti-Counterfeit Authority ( ACA), the practice of counterfeiting has been a thorny issue for entrepreneurs and consumers in Kenya for a long time.
The ACA estimates that the most counterfeited products in Kenya are fast-moving consumable goods including soap and detergents, food products, alcoholic beverages, dry cell batteries, pens, cosmetics, electrical and electronic equipment, vehicle spare parts, common medicine, shoe polish, seeds and fertilisers, apparel and software, among others.
Further, the ACA estimates that one in five goods sold in Kenya are counterfeit, which poses not only a huge risk to the country’s economy, but to the safety and health of the nation.
Acting against counterfeiting manufacturers and distributors can be highly challenging and, in such a scenario, Kenya has been outstandingly proactive in combating this scourge. Most notably it has (i) passed specific anti-counterfeiting legislation, the Anti-Counterfeit Act No. 13 of 2008 (the AC Act); (ii) created an anti-counterfeiting body, the Anti-Counterfeit Authority (ACA); and (iii) introduced an ACA recordation process. Our analysis explores the third development.
After realising that the existence of a specific anti-counterfeiting legislation and a proactive anti-counterfeiting body did not suffice in the struggle against counterfeiting, the Kenyan authorities concluded that more practical measures were needed, namely, to identify counterfeit goods at the country’s borders, intercept and destroy it—and from these needs the IP rights recordation system was created.
