In spite of incredible advances, experience shows that technology alone cannot counter today's increasingly sophisticated counterfeiters. Instead, experts, including the USFDA, advocate a multi-pronged approach for protecting intellectual property.

Advice to brand owners: Don't put all your intellectual property rights (IPR) protection strategies all in one basket – the technology basket. It turns out that anti-counterfeit systems, no matter how sophisticated, are simply counterfeit-resistant, not counterfeit-proof. And yes, thanks to today's more sophisticated fraudsters, even anti-counterfeit technologies can be counterfeited.

The fact that technology can contain counterfeiting, but won't stop the problem on its own, is evident when speaking about counterfeiting in general. Technologies that rely on visual confirmation (watermarks, tamper-resistant labels, 2D barcodes and such) naturally require trained eyes to differentiate between the real and the counterfeit. Further, they are limited in sectors where the supply chain is so full of loopholes that counterfeiting becomes easier. And while they may be fool-proof against wholesale purchasers or dealers, they won't work in cases where the end consumer is the one committing illegal parallel importing. Another issue is the rate of technological obsolescence (and anti-counterfeiting systems are not immune) – which is about 12 to 18 months today.

The technology-is-not-a-magic-bullet theory is even more magnified in the area of pharmaceuticals. For pharmaceutical packagers, there is no shortage of cutting-edge counterfeit-resistant technologies. None of them, however, provide 100 percent security. An eye-opening article in the PhRMA website reveals why:

No real-time verification of drug authenticity. Visual inspection of drug packaging and labeling is not a dependable method for identifying counterfeits for a simple reason. There's a whole slew of overt counterfeit-resistant features (holograms, color-shifting inks) incorporated in the thousands of drugs that are likely to be imported. Furthermore, these overt features are rotated regularly to mislead counterfeiters. It's virtually impossible for inspectors to keep up.

Counterfeit-resistant technologies can themselves be counterfeited. And quickly. It takes only a few months for today's more sophisticated counterfeiters to use advanced technologies to make perfect copies of authentic drugs' packaging and labeling. This makes visual inspection to determine the authenticity of imported drugs virtually useless.

End-consumers can't do the job. Individual consumers are not trained to distinguish genuine medicines from the fake ones. And product authentication devices are just too expensive to be considered for home use.

Repackaging invalidates many anti-counterfeit technologies. Repackaging, part and parcel of any drug importation scheme, removes or destroys not just the drug's original packaging and labeling – but also any anti-counterfeit technology that may have been incorporated into them. This leaves inspectors doing a visual inspection with no original product to compare the repackaged product with.

Universal adoption is a must. Or no anti-counterfeit technology, no matter how effective in ensuring the authenticity of a drug, can work in a global market. Ironically, a widespread adoption of authentication technologies, while solving one problem (counterfeiting), presents the market with another (increased cost of imported drugs).

Last but not least, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), in the developing world where the threat posed by counterfeiting is the greatest, computer and technological illiteracy, lack of infrastructure and prohibitive costs limits the ability of technology to deliver anti-counterfeit solutions.

Bottom line: There is no simple or single solution. There is no one-size-fits-all system. According to Dr. Valerio Reggi, coordinator of the IMPACT secretariat at WHO, "Technology needs to be combined with other measures, including tough legislation and regulations against counterfeiting, rigorous enforcement, stiffer penalties, and diligent surveillance on the part of the authorities and healthcare providers."

In an article in the Spicy IP weblog, blogger  J. Sai Deepak included rapid alert and response systems, public awareness programs about the dangers of counterfeits, and international collaboration into this multi-pronged approach.

And some may even add this: IP protection for technologies that protect IP!