In the wave of rapid development of the e-cigarette industry, the breeding of counterfeit and shoddy products has always been a cancer threatening the healthy development of the industry. As a leading company in the field of global atomization technology, RELX has always regarded it as its responsibility to safeguard the rights and interests of consumers and promote the standardized development of the industry. Recently, RELX officially announced its 2023 anti-counterfeiting report card: 24 counterfeit infringement cases were investigated and dealt with by joint law enforcement agencies, with the amount involved exceeding 30 million yuan, covering more than 10 provinces and cities including Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu. This achievement not only demonstrates RELX’s firm attitude of “zero tolerance” for counterfeit goods, but also forms a joint force with the active actions of industry partners such as VEEHOO and other brands to jointly build a “protective shield” for the e-cigarette market.
Faced with the full-chain penetration of counterfeit products from production to circulation, RELX has created a three-dimensional anti-counterfeiting system covering “production-circulation-consumption” with technological innovation as the core. On the technical level, RELX took the lead in launching the “one item, one code” traceability system, which uses blockchain technology to give each product a unique digital identity code. Consumers only need to scan the QR code on the outer packaging to verify the authenticity of the product in real time. Data shows that after the system was launched, the number of consumer complaints dropped by 67%, and the genuine product verification rate increased to 99.8%.
On the production side, RELX invested hundreds of millions of yuan to build intelligent factories and introduced AI visual inspection equipment to accurately identify details such as product appearance and packaging printing at the millisecond level. These technical means not only eliminate the living space of counterfeit goods from the source, but also promote the e-cigarette industry into a “traceable and verifiable” transparent era. As the head of RELX’s anti-counterfeiting technology said: “We hope that through technological innovation, the cost of counterfeiters will be far higher than the benefits, thereby completely cutting off the gray industrial chain.”
In the 24 anti-counterfeiting cases, the RELX legal team showed strong action. Take the recently cracked Dongguan counterfeiting case as an example. The case involved more than 200,000 counterfeit RELX products, and the amount involved exceeded 5 million yuan. After RELX discovered abnormal sales data through big data monitoring, it worked with the public security department to track across provinces for three months, and finally destroyed three underground factories and seized a full set of counterfeiting equipment. This “technology + law enforcement” linkage model has become a model for intellectual property protection in the e-cigarette industry.
What is more noteworthy is that RELX has established a monitoring network covering 30 key cities across the country, and accurately locates the circulation path of counterfeit goods through cross-comparison of online and offline data. In the special rectification of the Yiwu small commodity market in Zhejiang Province, the electronic evidence chain provided by RELX helped law enforcement agencies to seal up five counterfeit stores at one time, and the value of the products involved exceeded 2 million yuan. This full-chain crackdown “from production source to terminal retail” has greatly deterred the arrogance of lawbreakers.
Under the leadership of RELX, the e-cigarette industry is forming a good ecology of collective anti-counterfeiting. As a representative of emerging brands, VEEHOO e-cigarettes actively joined this market purification campaign. VEEHOO not only uses anti-counterfeiting technology similar to RELX on product packaging, but also launched the “Genuine Commitment” plan in 2023, requiring all dealers to sign an anti-counterfeiting agreement. Violators will face severe penalties such as permanent cancellation of agency qualifications. Its marketing director said in a public interview: “We regard counterfeits as the public enemy of the industry. Only when every brand takes action can we truly protect consumer trust.”
This industry consensus is being transformed into concrete actions: In 2023, the Electronic Cigarette Industry Association jointly established the “Intellectual Property Protection Alliance” with 12 leading companies such as RELX and VEEHOO to share a database of counterfeit clues and establish a cross-brand joint rights protection mechanism. Data shows that after the establishment of the alliance, the overall number of counterfeit complaints in the industry decreased by 41% year-on-year, and the market standardization was significantly improved.
RELX is well aware of the need to combine “fighting counterfeiting” with “curing the root cause”. At the consumer education level, the brand launched a series of “Fiery Eyes and Golden Eyes to Identify Authenticity” activities through social media, popularizing anti-counterfeiting knowledge in innovative forms such as short videos and interactive H5. Among them, the popular science video “Three Ways to Identify Fake Cigarette Bombs” has been played more than 80 million times on the entire network, and the number of discussions on related topics has exceeded 100 million. At the same time, RELX has set up anti-counterfeiting guidance specialists in more than 5,000 offline stores to provide consumers with instant authenticity verification services.
This dual protection of “technology + education” has achieved remarkable results. A third-party survey shows that the recognition of genuine products by RELX users has increased from 72% in 2021 to 93% in 2023, and more than 85% of consumers said they would actively verify the authenticity of the products. The awakening of consumer awareness is fundamentally compressing the living space of counterfeits.
The value of RELX’s anti-counterfeiting action has long surpassed the scope of single brand rights protection. Behind the 30 million yuan involved in the case is the epitome of the transformation of the e-cigarette industry from wild growth to standardized development. With the improvement of regulatory policies and the emergence of the demonstration effect of leading enterprises, the industry is gradually establishing a co-governance pattern of “enterprise autonomy, industry self-discipline, government supervision, and social supervision”.
Looking to the future, the anti-counterfeiting battle in the e-cigarette industry still requires continuous efforts from multiple parties. RELX plans to increase its investment in anti-counterfeiting technology research and development to 5% of its revenue in 2024, and establish strategic cooperation with the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) to introduce the world’s leading traceability technology. Brands such as VEEHOO have also stated that they will increase channel control and plan to achieve full coverage of digital verification systems in all terminal stores within the year.
In this battle to defend the future of the industry, RELX has used hard-core data to prove the responsibility of leading companies. When technological innovation, legal iron fist, industry collaboration, and consumer education form a synergy, we have reason to believe that a clear, healthy, and sustainable e-cigarette market ecosystem is accelerating. This is not only a victory in commercial competition, but also a solemn protection of consumers’ lives and health and corporate innovation achievements.
Tags: Nicotine bags, counterfeit e-cigarette products, Smoking cessation assistance program, veehoo vape