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How to Stop Trademark Counterfeiting

Welcome to Trademark Law Radio, a top web resource on issues of trademark infringement, trademark licensing, trademark protection, and trademark registration.

This is Brian Hall, a trademark attorney with Traverse Legal, PLC, a law firm representing both plaintiffs and defendants throughout the world in trademark litigation matters.  Today, I will be answering the question of how to stop trademark counterfeiting. 

Trademark counterfeiting is really a growing problem in the United States mostly because of the proliferation of the internet where goods and even services can be made and put for sale for consumers to buy without knowing whether or not it is, indeed, the actual product or a counterfeit.  So what can someone that owns a trademark on their product or service do in order to stop counterfeiting? 

Internet Law Update: Massive Credit Card Fraud

Crooks run rampant on the internet, where they believe their anonymity protects them from prosecution. Our Internet Lawyers speak with clients every day who have their business worlds turned upside down as a result of third party illegal activity. 

FOXNews.com - 11 Charged in Massive Credit Card Fraud Case - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

NEW YORK — The Department of Justice announced Tuesday the indictment of 11 people whom they say stole millions of credit and debit card numbers from major retailers in the nation's largest case of identity theft.

Is eBay responsible for the sale of pirated products on its auction site?

Copyright & Trademark Internet Law Update:

Click the link for more information on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998.

PC World - Business Center: Software Group Weighs Piracy Lawsuit Against EBay

EBay's VERO (Verified Rights Owner) program, in place since 1998, allows rights owners to contact eBay and have items removed from auction listings. "We can't be the experts on what's fake or not," Sharpe said in March. "We're not the experts on counterfeits."

Trademark and copyright law does not require eBay to preemptively remove listings of Tiffany jewelry suspected of being fake.  In effect, this case is in line with other courts considering the issue of whether service providers need to be gatekeepers on trademark and copyright issues. In considering this internet law issue, the judge noted:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 and other copyright law sets out strong standards for secondary copyright infringement, Kupferschmid said. U.S. copyright law allows lawsuits for vicarious infringement, when the defendant has the ability to stop infringing activity and has a direct financial interest in the infringement.

Cybersquatting, Fraud & Counterfeit Brands Continue to Proliferate on the Web

Traverse Legal's Internet Law Attorneys continue to track the continued growth of counterfeit brands and online fraud across the Internet.  Few companies appreciate the risk they face from scammers who mimic their brands online, then seek to use information gained from customers for fraudulent purposes.  In some cases, as is clear from the article below, the customers do not realize they have purchased counterfeit goods online.  Counterfeit components have turned up on U.S. Military, NATO, and NASA Space Shuttle, as well as Air Force One.  These counterfeit goods find their way into the system in a variety of ways and can dramatically harm companies seeking to protect their brands online.  It used to be that counterfeiters fit the profile of the street vendor in New York selling fake Gucci watches.  Sophisticated hackers have taken the counterfeit business online, to the detriment of any company seeking to protect its brand and perceived quality of goods and services online. 

YouTube.com Traffic Hijack As A Result of Faulty Route Announcement

News & Announcements from the RIPE NCC

On Sunday, 24 February 2008, Pakistan Telecom (AS17557) started an unauthorised announcement of the prefix 208.65.153.0/24. One of Pakistan Telecom's upstream providers, PCCW Global (AS3491) forwarded this announcement to the rest of the Internet, which resulted in the hijacking of YouTube traffic on a global scale. In this report we show how the events were seen by RIPE NCC's Routing Information Service (RIS) and how, in general, one can use the RIS tools to obtain hard data on network events.

Data Security, DNS Server Corruption and Malware

DNS Inventor Warns of Next Big Threat - Desktop Security News Analysis - Dark Reading

Mockapetris -- who is also chief scientist and chairman of the board for network naming and address vendor Nominum -- says the recent research on corrupted DNS resolution servers by researchers at Georgia Tech and Google demonstrates yet another way the bad guys are attacking DNS to infect users. (See Hacking a New DNS Attack .)

Phishing Scam on TrofficZ Site

TrafficZ customers targeted by phishing scam » Domain Name News

According to an email by TrafficZ, customers of the parking company have been target of a phishing scam. The email entitled “TrafficZ | Domain Termination Notice” states that one of [the customer’s] domains has been deleted from [their] TrafficZ account and asks them to visit Traffiz.com within 72 hours in order for their account not to be blocked. The link in the email leads the user to TrofficZ.com instead of going to TrafficZ.com. The originators of this phishing scam are attempting to capture the usernames and passwords of the mislead users.

 

Beijing company known for fakes applies for trademark, warns counterfeiters

Trademark Infringement & Cyber-squatting Update:

A Beijing clothing market famous for selling fakes has started its own line of brand-name products, filed for trademark protection and has warned trademark counterfeiters that it intends to enforce it's trade mark.

Microsoft Awarded Damages, Attorney Fees & Injunction Precluding Further Counterfeiting

Copyright infringement and trademark infringement on the internet is rampant. But infringement comes with risk.  Defendant Silver Start learned the hard way that infringing Microsoft's intellectual property can result in substantial damage awards. Our internet attorneys examine this important case.

Seattle Trademark Blog - Published by Michael Atkins- Microsoft Wins Most of Georgia Counterfeiting Case

In 2006, Microsoft Corp. brought suit in the Northern District of Georgia against Silver Star Micro, Inc., and its principal, Chase Campbell, for trademark and copyright infringement. On Jan. 6, Judge William Duffey, Jr., granted in large part Microsoft’s motion for summary judgment and imposed a permanent injunction against the defendants.