Miami Beach, January 12, 2009 -- Forged coupons, vouchers, prescriptions, product and medicine labels, financial instruments, IDs, tags, labels origination and authorization documents, and even passports...

They're literally everywhere...and they're illegal!

"With printed materials representing at least half if not more of this massive, $600 billion worldwide counterfeiting 'business', our industry cannot afford to ignore the issue of counterfeiting any longer," says George Ryan, president of Graphics of the Americas (GOA), the premier Exposition and Conference. "GOA attendees from all segments of the industry, including converters, security printers, design directors, structural graphic packagers, brand owners and others need to become more engaged in mitigating counterfeits and knockoffs while increasing their abilities to identify, verify and authenticate their brand products with new and improved technologies."

So what tools are available to help printers protect their businesses and their customers?  What techniques are companies and government agencies using now, and what results are they achieving?

These and other compelling topics -- covering the latest innovations to protect brand image and product integrity -- are on tap when Graphics of the Americas (GOA) once again plays host to The Brand Protection Conference, February 26 - 27, 2009 in Miami Beach.

Provocative and indispensible conference sessions
The two-day Brand Protection Conference, first held in 2008, has fast become known as one of the most provocative and indispensible conferences on brand protection in the world. Conference sessions feature a host of speakers covering the latest technologies and techniques for protecting packages, labels and, documentation from counterfeiting. Attendees will learn the often astonishing facts about counterfeiting, and then learn about the tools, techniques and strategies available to protect them and their clients from being compromised.

Keynotes highlight innovations from Pharmaceuticals and U.S. Government
Attendees will hear two keynote presentations highlighting overt and covert techniques that represent the zenith of anti-counterfeiting protections available today.

On the first day of the Brand Protection Conference, Gregg Metcalf, Industry Market Manager, Strategic Initiatives at Nosco Inc., will deliver a keynote presentation providing a thorough analysis of the latest security technologies, protocols, and risk management issues for pharmaceutical packaging. He'll talk about significant counterfeiting events in the pharmaceutical marketplace, the impact of current legislation, and will present some of the newest and most exciting technologies his company and others in the industry are using.

On day two, Honorable Robert C. Tapella, 25th Public Printer of the United States, will discuss the dozen or so security features incorporated into the newest U.S. Passports -- including the latest advances in biometrics, digital photographs, RFID tracking, unique page signatures and sensory and digital authentication devices. The new U.S. passports are the most effective to date in mitigating counterfeit and forgery attempts by terrorists, organized crime operators, and others engaged in illegal activities. Tapella will also talk about plans for incorporating even more technologies into future U.S. passports, to make them even more difficult for counterfeiters to reverse engineer.

Commenting on the two keynote sessions; Chris Lyons, Group Publisher, Package Design Magazine and RFID Product News, says "These are the top people attendees want to hear, and meet. The pharmaceutical industry is probably the most protected of all in terms of secure technologies for tracking, tracing and authenticating products. Likewise the U.S. Government has taken truly unique steps to protect U.S. passports, making them one of the most complicated and elaborate documents in the world."

Keynote presentations will be followed each day with sessions covering a myriad of topics, including security printing techniques, security inks, nanotags, coatings, security substrates, photonic crystal chemistry, silicon "biometric" electronic DNAs for RFID, new ePrescribed Rx CMS mandates, risk management providers and services, worldwide design considerations for ePedigree-compliant  pharmaceutical, health and beauty products, and packaging and labeling mandates.

"There's an abundance of heavy hitters speaking at the conference this year.  For example, in session three on Anti-Counterfeiting Solutions, we'll learn about one of the newest and most unique solutions that employ photonic crystal technology in inks, not pigments; delivering a unique signature for authentication and verification of documents that does not depend on color and literally cannot be cloned," adds Richard Warner, Security Printing Consultant and Conference Moderator.

Another uniquely interesting session on day one of the conference, according to Warner, covers the use of nanotags and optical variable inks in security printing -- a unique offering for authentication and verification that makes counterfeiting difficult. Another session on day two of the conference will discuss the full counterfeit lifecycle, beginning with the hundreds of millions of dollars lost each year through consumer incentives including counterfeit coupons, cash vouchers, low-end financial documents and the like.

"Attendees will see samples created with 'off-the-shelf' technologies they can employ immediately," he says. "It's not just the initial loss of the cash amount the coupons represent. There are counterfeit rings that return products for face value, meaning consumer packaged goods companies are losing twice in the deal."

As Ryan sums it up, "This conference is a must attend for anyone interested in hearing, meeting and learning by example from the heavy hitters in the anti-counterfeiting end of the business. You won't find this level of expertise anywhere else."

The Brand Protection Conference is sponsored by GOA, Printing Association of Florida, Package Design, RFID Product News, and Converting Magazines.

To register for The Brand Protection Conference or for more information visit www.bpc-security.com or www.GOA2009.com. Early Bird discount is $595 (before 1/31/09) for the conference. Full price is $695 (after 1/31/09).