Exam 12: Developing and Marketing Products

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Specific examples of countries and/or companies to illustrate your answers can be drawn from the textbook,class discussions,Internet,and/or newspapers and other publications.
Companies try to protect their intellectual property and trademarks from counterfeit goods.Recall that counterfeit goods are imitation products passed off as legitimate trademarks,patents,or copyrighted works-products that normally enjoy legal protection.Because developing nations often are weakest in enforcing such legal protections,they normally have the most active counterfeiting markets.Countries that top the list for the portion of their markets comprised of counterfeits include China,India,Russia,Thailand,and Turkey.
Counterfeiting is common among highly visible brand-name consumer goods,including watches,perfumes,clothing,movies,music,and computer software.Counterfeit products are typically sold to consumers on what is called the black market-a marketplace of underground transactions that typically appears because a product is either illegal (such as counterfeits)or tightly regulated.Tabletop vendors working the back streets of the world's largest cities represent the retail side of the black market.For example,in Sofia,the capital of Bulgaria,you can buy one CD-ROM that contains 50 software applications for $10;buying all the official versions of these products would cost about $5,000.In Estonia's Kadaka flea market,you can find the full Microsoft Office software bundle for around $18-about one-fiftieth of its official selling price.Increasingly,engineered industrial components such as aircraft parts,medicines,and other pharmaceutical products are also becoming targets of counterfeiters.
Counterfeit goods can damage buyers' image of a brand when the counterfeits are of inferior quality-which is nearly always the case.Buyers who purchase an item bearing a company's brand name expect a certain level of craftsmanship and,therefore,satisfaction.But when the product fails to deliver on the expectations,the buyer is dissatisfied,and the company's reputation is tarnished.