Posts Tagged: "counterfeits"

J&J Subsidiary Wins $18 Million Judgment Against Surgical Tool Counterfeiter

On Friday, July 21, an Illinois district court ruled that a Pakistani employee of a medical device distribution company infringed on Ethicon’s trademark when he bought, marketed and sold counterfeit Ethicon devices. Ethicon is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson and won an $18 million default judgment. Ethicon first filed a complaint against the defendant Mudassar Shah in July 2020 and alleged federal and state trademark infringement of five different trademarks. The laundry list of accusations also included trademark dilution, false advertising, common law unjust enrichment, common law tortious interference with contract, and breach of settlement agreement.

How Small Retailers Can Efficiently Enforce IP Rights: An Interview with JL Cook of SnakeArts

“The true crime in ecommerce fraud is that creators will stop creating.” That grim assessment has driven Jennifer L. Cook of SnakeArts to fight like heck against rampant infringements and counterfeits globally. Her ongoing class action lawsuit against Meta Platforms claims their subsidiary Facebook knowingly permits copyright infringement via advertisements featuring stolen product images from artists. It seems to be in Meta’s best interest to do so: FB generates the bulk of its billions of dollars in annual revenue from advertisements, without regard to the legitimacy of content.

Report Finds 68% of Respondents Have Seen Products Counterfeited Online

A report released  Wednesday by MarqVision found that 68% of direct-to-customer (DTC) brands have had their products counterfeited. The report surveyed 295 representatives from DTC brands across the world. The report also provides information about how worried DTC brands are about IP infringement and counterfeiting. The DTC market has tripled over the last five years, accounting now for $1 of every $7 spent, according to the report.

How Some Brands are Successfully – and Cost-Effectively – Combating Online Counterfeiters

Protecting brands and going after counterfeiters is like herding cats. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways that online counterfeiters illegally monetize brands. Companies have many ways to combat them, but it can traditionally take lots of time, cost, and resources to do it. Now there is a less publicized option in the United States which can deter counterfeiters, takes little time, and often even pays for itself. This ultimately can result in true deterrence of counterfeiters for a brand in online marketplaces. With online sales exploding, there has been a marked increase in sales of counterfeit products, despite various solutions available to combat it. Indeed, the industry as a whole will see over $1.7 trillion of sold counterfeit products on various online platforms each year—and that estimate, by the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, was in 2015. Counterfeit sales result in the loss of millions of U.S. jobs and lost profits, and is by far the world’s largest criminal enterprise, with eCommerce counterfeit sales expected to grow to $6 trillion by 2024 in the United States alone. 

Unsealed Court Documents Reveal Scale of Counterfeit Gilead HIV Drugs Scam

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York unsealed multiple documents last week that named the kingpins behind an alleged counterfeit HIV medication conspiracy. An unsealed amended complaint filed in late September names the two alleged kingpins as Lazaro Roberto Hernandez and Armando Herrera, both of Florida. The two “kingpin defendants” are accused of being “at the head of the conspiracy” and “career criminals who organized the conspiracy and controlled the flow of the counterfeits, all while operating from the shadows and using extensive measures to conceal their identities.” Hernandez was identified by basic geolocation data associated with burner phones used to communicate details about the conspiracy.