We develop prevention and enforcement strategies to help protect you against counterfeiters and intellectual property pirates.
On the prevention side, we help you identify and fill gaps in your intellectual property portfolios, protection programs and customs guides that make you vulnerable to counterfeiters and pirates seeking to profit from your intellectual property and goodwill. Our Shanghai office can help reduce the risk of intellectual property theft should you choose to manufacture in China. We design custom solutions that range from regional to global in scale, depending on your business objectives. Here are a few examples of prevention services we offer:
- Filing for patent, trademark and copyright protection in the U.S. and abroad.
- Registering trademarks with Customs Agencies in U.S., China, South America, and Central America to block the import/export of infringing goods, including the development of customs guides for Border Agents.
- Negotiating manufacturing, non-disclosure and intellectual property agreements with foreign manufacturers to protect against intellectual property theft.
- Applying for enhanced protection on e-commerce and social media sites, including brand registry and brand gating on Amazon.
- Assisting with implementing anti-counterfeit technologies, tracking and serialization.
- Developing intellectual property portfolio strategies and systems to minimize counterfeit risks.
If knockoff products or bootlegs do appear on the market, we help stop infringers in their tracks through takedown notices, enforcement actions and litigation. Our team has extensive experience addressing product counterfeiting and piracy both in and out of court. Our services include the following:
- Investigating infringers to discover where they are located.
- Coordinating investigations within China, South America, and Central America regarding suspected counterfeiters.
- Utilizing take-down procedures and cease and desist letters to efficiently remove counterfeit products and pirated materials from e-commerce and social media sites like Amazon, Alibaba, eBay, Twitter, Etsy, Facebook and YouTube.
- Filing Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices to removing infringing copyright material.
- Attacking domain-name hijacking through the Uniform Domain Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP).
- Pursuing gray-market sellers who disrupt the legitimate supply chain.
- Combatting internet fraud involving 1-800 numbers where counterfeiters set up fake websites and use our clients’ trademarks to dupe customers into thinking that they are viewing the real websites. If customers call the 1-800 numbers on the fake webpage, they may end up divulging personal or financial information without realizing that the websites are fake.
- Negotiating settlements with larger counterfeiters to remove infringing products from the market and compensate for past infringement.
- Litigating against counterfeiters or pirates who refuse to stop and obtaining restraining orders and injunctions against persistent patent, trademark and copyright infringers.
- Seizing goods that bear counterfeit trademarks.
