Counterfeit: made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive : forged [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterfeit https://www.merriam-web

Counterfeit: made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive : forged [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterfeit https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterfeit] Teaching how to produce something that is like (or even identical) to something else is not an act of deception. --- (I am not a lawyer, but have some familiarity with "IP" law. What follows is my understanding of United States laws on the matter.) Making reproductions, or teaching how to, is not allowed under some circumstances (for example, if the thing being reproduced is protected by patents) but is allowed under others (for example, teaching how to duplicate a copyrighted work of art generally falls under fair use). For your Rolex example, it depends on what Rolex is being duplicated, but your scenario could possibly be legal. Rolex watches can be protected by utility patents, design patents, and trademarks. Utility patents cover specific useful, novel, and non-obvious mechanical features of the watch. (ELI5 version: they protect the parts inside the watch.) Design patents cover similarly-specific ornamental features of the watch. (ELI5 version: they protect the look of the outside of the watch.) Both of these patents expire (after 20 and 15 years, respectively). After this period, all mechanical aspects of the watch, inside and out, become public property. The remaining protection on producing exact replicas of the watch are trademark protections. These specifically cover the "Rolex" and rolex "crown" marks on the watch. Trademarks protection can potentially last forever; Rolex seems unlikely to lose theirs any time soon. Based on this understanding, it would be quite legal to publish instructions describing exactly how to reproduce Rolex watches that are greater than 20 years old, with the limitation that you should not mark your reproductions with Rolex's mark (the name or the crown). A perfect reproduction of a 50-year-old Rolex, marked with, say, a paper hat and the word "fohless", would not infringe on any of Rolex's rights. --- For what it's worth, I am not 100% behind Protected Geographical Status. The part I am behind is the protection of the identity of products with specific, intrinsically-local characteristics. The Wikipedia article opens with roquefort cheese as an example: it is made from specific things in a specific way in a specific place, and all three of those things make it what it is. However, using the same-or-similar things in the same-or-similar way in a different place can produce products which are varyingly different or identical to the original. For products as old or common as cheese, there is nothing stopping somebody from doing this -- that's why can imitations exist. However, I think it is important to be able to express that something is an imitation, and outright backwards to prohibit it. If I like a cheese, how am I to learn of the more-accessible (and maybe preferable) imitations, or of the Protected legacy cheese it imitates? Imitating connects the prior art and the derivative in an intrinsic way, but these regulations prohibit this connection from its most visible location: the labeling on the objects themselves. The relationship may then only reside within the objects, which require means (money, and opportunities to purchase or order) and action (eating) to access, or in unrelated objects: lists, registries, the words and minds of the eaters. Practically, this makes it difficult to learn about cheese, because the actions necessary for doing the learning have been highly divorced from the actions necessary for eating. Intellectually, western society seems to have agreed that we should know what we eat, and so required that foods be labeled with lists of their enumerated and nutritional content. I agree with this sentiment. Western culture was tremendously shaped by the Enlightenment, and it is in the spirit of the Enlightenment to know and understand what goes into your body. But there is more to foods than just what they are -- there is also why they are. Foods have legacies inside them, and that plays just as big of a role in shaping what goes into your body as does the availability of wheat, salt, and Red Dye #40. Limiting the proclamation or legacy is contrary to the rediscovery, free exchange, and new understanding of old knowledge, and therefore seems, to me, to be against a major spirit in our shared society.