Alibaba Counterfeit Goods Lead To Trademark Infringement Disputes
A recent dispute involving Alibaba counterfeit goods has risen between Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and a US apparel trade group over counterfeit products. Despite the attempts of the ecommerce giant Alibaba to fight selling of counterfeit goods on both Alibaba and Aliexpress, a US company is calling to put Alibaba’s Taobao site back on its list of “Notorious Markets” for counterfeit goods.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, Alibaba has had for a long time to deal with complaints from brand owners about counterfeit products ranging from luxury brands to sportswear sold on its Taobao platform. From our experience, many small businesses face such problems and find them very difficult to handle unless there is professional help on their side.
Alibaba And Its Counterfeit Approach
Generally, Alibaba has been criticized for being too soft towards counterfeit sellers. As a result, Alibaba has launched a new English version of its counterfeit reporting system called “TaoProtect”. Although AliBaba has another platform called “AliProtect” which covers its other websites, TaoProtect has been developed exclusively for dealing with a range of Intellectual Property (IP) complaints such as copyright, patent and trademark infringement and unfair use of those IP rights. This reveals the scale of the problem as well as the serious steps conglomerates such as Alibaba take to ensure IP rights are effectively protected.
Complaint To Alibaba – Is It Effective?
With the launch of the English version of TaoProtect, UK and other Western European companies would be able to access easily the counterfeit reporting system. Alibaba’s US-based senior IP protection manager commented that “because the success and integrity of our marketplaces depend on consumer trust, we have comprehensive policies and practices in place to fight IP infringement.”
The improvement in their system comes partly as a result of the lawsuit filed against Alibaba by companies like Gucci and Yves St. Laurent. The suit was filed by Kering (the fashion house which owns these brands) last May. A US District Judge in Manhattan granted some of them an immediate order barring sales of goods on Alibaba.
Lexology commented that, generally, brand owners that have secured trademark registrations in China, the US and wherever else your business operates is the safest route to tackle online infringement.
However, users of the Alibaba platforms have complained about “the slow, sluggish, and confusing systems Taobao uses to process takedown requests” for offending listings.
Do You Have The Same Problem?
Many small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) face counterfeit, trademark and copyright infringement issues. Therefore, if you need specific help, know that we have the experience of dealing with a variety of platforms in relation to trademark infringement and similar issues.
