Protecting your electronic product from copying

We have all heard about pirated copies of electronic products. One company started to notice a larger number of returns on a particular Internet router. Upon further investigation, it found the returns were a poor copy of its product but still they kept coming in; same box, same product and same literature. Even though the company took the blame from unsatisfied customers and initiated a serial number return policy, the damage to its reputation was done. The question is: how can a company protect itself from those who attempt to copy products?

One strategy is to use available technologies to make a product hard to copy. Most pirates do not want to spend the money to redesign a product if it costs too much. They want to make quick money by doing an easy reverse engineering job and then make a few hundred thousand cheap knockoffs. By making it difficult to copy a design you can increase the thieves’ cost and reduce their potential to make money. Time is their enemy.