HSM IP is pleased to once again present the International Trademark Association’s(INTA) Unreal Campaign to over 200 students at the Cayman Islands Further Education Centre (CIFEC) in December 2020.

In order to reach the entire school population, the HSM IP team hosted two presentations. Natasha Whitelocke (Head IP Paralegal) delivered both sessions and was joined by Corey Neysmith (Senior IP Administrative Assistant) on 1 December and Lisa Chin-Forde (Senior IP Administrative Assistant and past CIFEC student) on 3 December.

INTA’s Unreal Campaign is a consumer awareness programme aimed at educating teenagers about the importance of trade marks, intellectual property and the dangers of counterfeit products.

This is a global programme taught all over the world and while INTA shifted gears in 2020 to offer this presentation virtually, the Cayman Islands is fortunate to be essentially COVID-19 free due to strict government regulations. As a result, schools are functioning as normal and HSM IP was able to deliver these presentations in person.

With the holidays around the corner and people buying more products, the team explained the importance of recognising trade marks. A trade mark can be a word, design, service mark, building shape and more. They also stressed the economic impacts of people purchasing knockoffs and how these inferior products can affect people’s health as well as safety.

As part of the presentation, the students enjoyed a game of “spot a fake”, where they had to guess between two similar looking products and identify the reasons as to why one of them was the fake.

“Our team is passionate in the fight against counterfeits,” shares HSM IP Managing Partner, Huw Moses. “It is important now more than ever to get this message across due to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19.”

HSM IP is a specialist intellectual property law practice based in the Cayman Islands and this is the sixth time that they have presented INTA’s Unreal Campaign. The last presentation took place on 30 April 2019 at the Clifton Hunter High School in North Side.