As a brand protection attorney, I spend a lot of time on the various e-commerce marketplaces investigating infringements, gathering evidence, and enforcing our clients’ trademarks and copyrights. For the last few years, I have continuously seen all kinds of counterfeit knife listings. While some listings boldly tout knockoff name brands, other sellers are more subtle, obscuring trademarks while making the product just recognizable enough to drive sales to buyers wanting name-brand blades at off-brand prices.
For research purposes, I recently bought a counterfeit version of a knife that I already owned. It arrived in a branded box, with a branded product pamphlet, and brand markings on the blade itself. None of these appeared in the listing photo when I purchased it. The danger posed by fakes like these is real: shoddy construction, misleading and false product specifications, and no real recourse for buyers when the product fails or causes injury.
The average consumer is likely unaware of the tactics used by counterfeiters to thrive on these marketplaces and may have no reason to suspect that they are buying a fake. In fact, several reviews for the same listing I purchased stated that the knife was a great, legitimate name-brand knife. Brands must do more than rely on general consumer education to quell the flood of counterfeits plaguing the marketplaces. It is vital for brands to take ownership over their brand protection efforts and attack the problem head-on. If you are reading this, you probably already know that counterfeit copies of your products are available. The question is, what are you doing about it?
The Real Problem Is Not Awareness, It’s Inaction
Awareness of a problem is not the same as having a plan to address it. It is, however, the starting point. Many brands know counterfeits exist but have not invested the time or thought into building and maintaining an active enforcement plan. Ultimately, passivism is the costliest mistake a brand can make. Catching a handful of counterfeit listings early is manageable; confronting an entrenched counterfeit network of hundreds of accounts spread across a dozen online marketplaces is not. The brands that fare best treat enforcement as a marketplace reality that requires the same intentionality and discipline as any other area of the business.
A good place to start is by simply taking stock of your exposure. Search your brand name, your model names/numbers, and common misspellings across some of the major online marketplaces such as Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon, DHGate, eBay, Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop, etc. What you find may be the motivation you need to act.
Keeping Up With Counterfeiters
Counterfeit sellers engineer their listings to evade marketplace detection systems. Here are a few tricks that I have observed:
- Logo obscuring in photos. The listing photographs obscure, partially block, or partially smudge or blur trademarks on product packaging or the product itself. However, key details generally remain sufficiently focused to unmistakably indicate or hint at the brand.
- Listing photos hide what the physical product does not. The product in the listing photograph may not show any markings at all but instead depict an item with merely the same fit and finish as the well-known authentic version. This was the situation with the counterfeit knife I purchased. No markings on the blade were shown in the product photograph, but when it arrived it bore all the trademarks in all the right places, just like the authentic version.
- Misspelled and altered brand names in listing titles. Sellers intentionally misspell brand names or make slight variations by rearranging letters, adding hyphens, or inserting extra characters so their listings surface when shoppers search for the real brand.
- “Inspired by” and “style” language. Sellers describe a product as an “ABC style knife” or “ABC inspired knife” (where ABC is a recognized brand) to draw traffic from brand-name searches and mask their trademark infringement. This wordplay, however, is frequently debunked by listing photos or purchaser photos that show actual brand markings on the product or packaging, making clear the “style” language is cover, not candor.
In sum, marketplace detection is largely keyword and image-based. Counterfeit sellers know this and have built their evasion around it. Your enforcement must be just as deliberate.
What to Do: Proactive Enforcement from the Ground Up
The good news is that brands are not powerless. However, proactivity is vital. Here are a few suggestions for an effective brand protection program:
Conduct an IP Audit
Before you can enforce effectively, you need to know what tools you have at your disposal and what tools you may be missing. An IP audit identifies the full scope of protectable rights that you can rely on in the fight against counterfeits, such as registered and unregistered trademarks, trade dress, design patents, and copyrights. Taking a fresh look will help identify gaps in your portfolio and allow you to shore it up.
Think Globally
U.S. trademark registration is the baseline for effective marketplace enforcement. Without a registered mark, you may find that marketplace enforcement programs are either unavailable or entirely ineffective. While a great start, domestic registration alone is not enough. Register your marks and copyrights also in those countries where your products or their components are manufactured.
Takedown complaints on major marketplaces can be defeated outright if a bad-faith registrant in a manufacturing country — China being the most common example — holds a local registration for your mark. That foreign registration gives the counterfeiter standing to challenge or block your enforcement actions before they get any traction. The best practice is to register your trademarks and/or copyrights in any country where you conduct meaningful business and seek cancellation of any fraudulent registrations. Thereafter, regular monitoring in these countries will help catch bad faith applications before they register and become roadblocks in your enforcement efforts.
Enroll in Marketplace Brand Protection Programs and Use Them
Many marketplaces offer brand protection portals that make it easier to report, and proactively prevent, counterfeit listings. These portals often allow you to record your trademarks, copyrights, and patents and assert them against infringing listings in just a few clicks. However, enrolling in a marketplace’s brand protection services alone is not enough. Active, regular, and timely engagement is what produces results. Be expansive in your monitoring efforts and regularly search for common misspellings, model names, and visual matches.
Leverage Outside Resources
Knife makers are in the business of making and selling knives. Yet, running takedown campaigns across dozens of marketplaces, chasing counterfeit listings and sellers, and tracking progress is a demanding job, and one you should not address alone. There are plenty of cost-effective options to assist with your enforcement efforts that are easy to establish and will produce results. For example, enlist the federal government’s assistance in stopping fakes at the border by recording your trademarks and copyrights with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Call on your authorized manufacturers and dealers to report fakes and provide them with an easy reporting channel. Use technology, including AI, to take on the enforcement work that you likely do not have the time or manpower to handle on your own.
Get Ahead of It, Do Not Wait for It to Find You
The knife industry has spent decades building brands that stand for quality, safety, and craftsmanship. Counterfeiters steal that reputation and profit unjustly from legitimate brands’ hard work and investment. Unfortunately, they are not going away. The brands that come out ahead are the ones that treat enforcement as an ongoing necessity, not an afterthought. In other words, your brand protection needs to be as sharp and effective as your blades.
Article prepared for The American Knife & Tool Institute (“AKTI”) by Jason H. Cooper, an AKTI Distinguished Ambassador Member.