Counterfeit Products from China and How to Get Them Off the Web (Alibaba, Amazon, etc.)

Full disclosure. This post is on more than what to do when your product is being counterfeited in China. It also is on what to do to position yourself so that if your product is being counterfeited in China, you will have real options on what to do.

Barely a day goes by without one of our China lawyers getting contacted by an American or European company telling us that its products are being counterfeited and would we please get so and so — either the alleged counterfeiter or the online site on which the counterfeit products are posted — to remove the offending items. Were it only that simple. We have for years been writing about how our lawyers have a near 100% success rate at getting counterfeit products removed from Chinese e-commerce websites like Tmall and Taobao and the same holds true for American websites like Amazon and Ebay. But our success rate depends largely on the advertised product is truly a counterfeit, as that term is commonly defined by lawyers not businesspeople.

All of the big American and Chinese e-commerce sites, including the Alibaba family of sites (Taobao, Tmall, Alibaba, AliExpress, 1688.com, etc.), have formal internal procedures for removing product listings that infringe a third party’s IP rights. To secure the removal of infringing listings, you must follow their procedures to the letter. Among other things, you must provide documentation proving (1) the IP owner’s existence and (2) the IP owner’s rights to the IP in question. Only after you have submitted these documents and had them verified by the e-commerce site can you even submit a takedown request. When you do submit your takedown request (assuming everything goes smoothly), most e-commerce sites will remove the counterfeit products within a week or so. When things don’t go smoothly with a Chinese e-commerce site (which judging from our volume of phone calls is rather frequently) it is vital to have a person on your side who speaks Chinese, understands Chinese intellectual property law, and is experienced in dealing with the particular Chinese website that is posting your products. This person is necessary to get to higher-level employees at the e-commerce site and explain to them why the listing does in fact violate your IP.

To date, we have succeeded with every takedown request seeking the removal of products that infringe our client’s trademarks or copyrights. But probably half the time, we have to tell the potential client there is no point in hiring us for the product removal. Why is that? The below email from one of our China lawyers who regularly works on takedown matters across multiple websites (both in China and elsewhere) explains.

Every Chinese website has its own takedown protocols, and the key to getting products removed is to follow that site’s protocols. You express an interest in suing these websites and we do not advise that unless and until we have sought to get your products taken down and failed. Lawsuits are expensive and based on our track record in securing takedowns, the odds are overwhelming that we will never need to file one on your behalf. To put things in perspective, we have never filed one. The lawsuit you mention against Alibaba deals a lot more with why so many counterfeit products show up on Alibaba websites in the first place than on Alibaba’s failure to take down counterfeit products once on one of their sites.

You are correct that only the copyright or trademark owner or its authorized representative can make takedown requests. However, sites vary as to the sort of authentication they require for a Power of Attorney and most of the sites know our law firm well enough that they almost never require we provide them with a formal Power of Attorney to achieve a takedown.

The most important thing is that we show proof that you have registered your IP (your trademark or your copyright) somewhere. Some Chinese sites sometimes will take down products with foreign IP registrations, but China registrations are always much better. Technically, China is obligated to recognize copyrights registered in any Berne Convention signatory nation, but explaining China’s WTO obligations to a 21-year-old customer service representative seldom works. And as you can probably imagine, securing the removal of copyrighted IP for which a copyright has never been registered anywhere is even more difficult. This is why gaming/video/music companies so often complain about how difficult it is to secure counterfeit takedowns from Chinese websites. By the time they get their China copyright registration and can submit a takedown request, the damage has been done. How many people will still be downloading today’s big game six months from now? US websites are not all that different.

Another thing to consider is that the more sophisticated/well-heeled the website, the more likely it is that they have a formal takedown procedure. For the smaller websites, we generally have to contact someone directly because there are no instructions on the website or they are hopeless. But unless the website is a pirate site (which is rarely the case), it does not want to be sued for hosting counterfeit or pirated items and so long as we do all the work for them, they’ll be happy to take down rogue products and content.

Finally, you should be aware that once this whole takedown process begins, it’s pretty much ongoing. The pirates and counterfeiters don’t just give up because their first upload got taken down. And even if we stop one or two of the counterfeiters, we should expect more to pop up. This is why companies hire us to monitor and report and after we remove the existing counterfeits, we should discuss what sort of future programs make sense for your company and your situation.. One of the things we can and should do though is try to figure out who is doing the counterfeiting, how they are doing it, and what we can do — if anything — to try to stop it or slow it down.

My law firm has an Alibaba account that makes us eligible to seek removal of links that infringe our clients’ IP. We do this by submitting proof of identification and authorization, as well as information regarding the IP which is being infringed upon. This is accomplished by our providing the following to Alibaba: (i) our client’s “business license,” (ii) any formal IP registration documents and (iii) (sometimes) a power of attorney signed by the client, authorizing us to file the complaint on its behalf. We also submit the following information: the IP registration number(s), the title of the IP, the name of the IP owner, the type of IP, the country of registration, the time period during which the IP registration is effective, and the period during which the IP owner wishes to protect its IP rights. We translate these documents into Chinese to make things easier on the Chinese website company and because doing so greatly speeds things up. After submission, it typically takes Alibaba a few days to verify our information.

Once Alibaba verifies the information we provide, we provide the infringing links and removal virtually always quickly occurs. For complaints concerning patent rights, we also need to provide proof of the connection between the infringing material and the IP being infringed. Alibaba normally takes a few more days to process the complaint, which typically consists of passing along the complaint to the infringing party.

If the infringing party does not respond to the complaint within three working days of receipt, either by deleting the infringing link or by filing a cross-complaint, Alibaba will delete the infringing link. Absent prior written permission from Alibaba, the infringing party would then be prohibited from posting the same information on Alibaba again. If the infringing party files a cross-complaint, we would then need to deny the cross-complaint, and then Alibaba would handle the “dispute.” Alibaba normally resolves such disputes within a few days. As you would probably imagine, counterfeiters almost never file a cross-complaint; they typically just slink away.

We have achieved similar results with China’s other leading and legitimate online marketplaces. But as you would expect, China’s smaller and sketchier marketplaces are more problematic when it comes to IP protection.

If your IP (especially your trademark or your copyright) is registered in China, securing the removal from Chinese websites of products that infringe on your IP can be relatively fast and easy. If your IP is registered in a country other than China, securing the removal from Chinese websites of products that infringe on your IP can be accomplished, but not always. If your IP (your unregistered U.S. trademark, for instance, or your unregistered copyright) is not registered anywhere, your best strategy for securing removal of infringing products is to register it first and then seek removal, rather than to seek removal first. The same generally holds true for US websites, but US websites are a lot less likely to remove products that infringe on your patent rights than are Chinese websites. US websites typically take the position that you need a US court order stating that the product or products infringe on your patent for a removal.

In other words, plan now with your IP filings for takedowns later.

We will be discussing the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts business there. We will be telling you what works and what does not and what you as a businessperson can do to use the law to your advantage. Our aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.