Some technologies are taken for granted after a while. Printing is one of them. While smartphones, tablets and social networks continue to steal the headlines, printing has been relegated to the list of very mundane tasks. But take it away from any home or office, and it’s a big problem. This heavy dependence on the printer has led to counterfeiters to produce fake ink and try to sell it at a cheaper price, with consequences to the consumer.

“According to the Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce, counterfeiting of all types of products accounts for between five to seven per cent of world trade, worth an estimated $600 billion a year,” Tina Rose, HP EMEA (Europe, Middle-East and Asia) anti-counterfeit marketing programme manager told i-Tech. HP is the largest printer manufacturer in the world, with an approximate 40 per cent market share, double that of the second-placed manufacturer.

“The Imaging Supplies Coalition estimates that counterfeiting of all brands has a global impact of $3 billion on the printing supplies industry alone each year. Even though HP has seen great success as a result of its refined anti-counterfeit infrastructure, there’s always progress to be made.”

Globally over the last four years, HP’s sophisticated anti-counterfeit programme has conducted nearly 5,000 investigations in 88 countries, resulting in over 3,000 enforcement actions (raids and seizures by authorities) and over 30 million units of counterfeit products and components seized. Investigations and actions have occurred on every continent except Antarctica. Every enforcement is directly supported by the proper authorities, either police (criminal) or an administrative organisation, according to HP.

Malta is no exception, though the situation is not as bad as in other countries.

“As with many products, counterfeit activity is highest in emerging markets where trademark and intellectual property laws are not respected as much or are only somewhat enforced. Although the counterfeiting problem is not egregious at the moment in Malta, we must not let our guard down as counterfeiters are always looking to expand their base of operations into new markets,” added HP’s executive.

The whole issue with counterfeit ink is that the real victims are the consumers and businesses who don’t receive the quality they believe they are purchasing when they are tricked into buying counterfeit products, believing them to be genuine. Counterfeit toner and ink cartridges frequently leak or do not work properly, so they can ruin a printer and may invalidate its warranty while wasting money, as consumers have to buy another cartridge to replace the counterfeit one.

HP has some good tips on how to making the best of your printer in terms of ink usage. Printing in “draft” mode for lower priority documents with inkjet printers is one of them. These type of printers produce output by moving the print cartridge along the page and spraying ink dots to create the printing. In “normal” mode, which is what most printers are configured with, the print cartridge makes multiple passes over the same area and sprays multiple coats of ink to make the characters bolder.

Users can also save greatly by switching to a less ink-intensive font such as century gothic, instead of the more common arial. In addition HP auto sense adjusts the print settings automatically, taking the guesswork out of selecting the correct settings, which saves time, effort, and the expense of wasted ink and paper from printing by trial and error. HP smart web printing automatically adjusts web pages to fit one paper as well and optimises web printing by letting you combine portions of numerous websites into one page, saving ink and paper.

In any case users are urged to print responsibly and be sure to also print on both sides of the paper when possible.

More information on anti-counterfeiting is available at http://hp.com/go/anticounterfeit .