NEW DELHI:
Aggressively protecting high quality ownership experience, product reliability and the trust reposed by its 43 million customers across India, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. has conducted a series of enforcement raids against traders and manufacturers dealing in counterfeit Honda parts across the country.
With customer safety a top priority, Honda 2Wheelers India created the new Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement (IPR) team led by its international IPR expert in 2017. Since then, Honda Genuine Parts (HGP) campaign has aggressively taken steps to initiate and lodge criminal action against such traders, manufacturers and suppliers of counterfeit Honda parts.
As a next step, Honda with the help of local Police undertook 4 successful raid operations in June 2019 in Delhi and Cuttack including raid against unauthorized service centers; seizing a total of 10,462 counterfeit items including spurious parts, accessories, various counterfeit dies, scooter guard kits, fake packaging machines and label printing machines of estimated Rs. 49 lac worth. Delhi Police conducted 2 raids on basis of Honda’s complaint on counterfeit parts and accessories dealers in Bawana Industrial Area and Karol Bagh market areas.
In 2 separate raid actions in Cuttack (Odisha), police raided the premises of2 service centers running under fake Honda brand name at Sector 9 and Chandi road and arrested the owner. In just 3 years since its formation, Honda’s IPR Enforcement team has been working closely with local police and investigation agencies.
Till date, a total of 15 raids have been successfully conducted across major cities including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Gandhinagar, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Cuttack and Gadhi Hasaru (Gurgaon).This has led to seizure of over 94,000 counterfeit spare parts, accessories and other items with estimated worth nearing Rs.2 crore. Led by market intelligence, Honda IPR Enforcement team has cracked down hard on fake part manufacturers in automotive industrial belts, retailers/ suppliers in automotive spares hubs and intensified action from 3 raids in 2017 to 6 raids in first six months of 2019 itself.
In future too, Honda will continue to aggressively take strict action, including but not limited to raids on spurious traders, suppliers and manufacturers to protect its customers from being cheated with counterfeit, duplicate, imitated or fake parts. Further, Honda advises its valued customers to insist on only Honda Genuine Products easily available at all authorized outlets, service centers and parts distributors across India. Keeping in mind the safety of our valued customers, it is recommended to use only Honda Genuine Parts, which comply with stringent quality norms and meet Honda’s global quality standards.
All Honda Genuine Parts come with ahigh-security MRP label. This tamper-proof label can be easily differentiated from a fake with its numerous security-enriched features including an original hologram. Details of how to identify an Honda Genuine Part, are available at https://www.honda2wheelersindia.com/services/how-to-idendify-honda-genuine-parts. The HGP campaign is also promoting the “Be Genuine, Buy Genuine” cause through meetings with officials from Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Controller General of Patent Design and Trademarks, Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in India, Indian Customs and several State Police.