SnapDragon monitoring wins Queen’s Award for Innovation

Online brand protection company, SnapDragon Monitoring, has received a Queen’s Award for Innovation.

SnapDragon Monitoring was born out of its founder’s own experience of fighting fakes when her baby product, Totseat, was counterfeited and her thriving business brought to near ruin.

The toy and nursery industry is heavily targeted by counterfeiters. In 2017, the European Commission reported seizure of approximately 3.5 million fake toys at EU borders, equating to a value of over €21 million. Despite such efforts, the industry is still estimated to lose €1.4 billion each year, purely from counterfeits which slip through the net (Source: EUIPO).

To date, SnapDragon has helped protect toy and nursery brands across the globe from IP infringement, including Orchard Toys and Cheeky Chompers.

Head Dragon, Rachel Jones comments, “Copycats within the toy and nursery industry are not uncommon – I should know, my own baby product was counterfeited! Product safety is the number one priority in the toy industry. Parents expect quality, reliability and safety, and all too often we are hearing of the heart-stopping cases of near-fatal scenarios involving fake toys. We aim to give brands all the tools they need to fight fakes and protect revenue, reputation and most importantly, the end consumer.”

SnapDragon Monitoring’s ‘Swoop’ platform searches for copies and counterfeits of products and brands, so that they can be removed from sale. It is used by businesses of all sizes across the globe to protect their IP online.

Highlighting the seriousness of the problem, Rachel said: “Fake products contribute over 3.3% to world trade each year (Source: OECD, 2019) and it’s a problem which isn’t going away. Organisations that may have believed supply chains were under control need to look twice at the issue of parallel production, which is anything but ‘under control’.

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