Chinalawblog.com Website Review

GETTING COUNTERFEITS OF YOUR PRODUCTS OFF THE CHINESE WEB — ALIBABA, JD.COM, DHGATE, TAOBAO, ETC. contacted by an American or European company telling us that its products are being counterfeited and would we please get so and so (usually the alleged counterfeiter or the online site on which the counterfeit products are posted) — to remove the offending items immediately. If only it were that simple. 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 e-commerce sites. But our success rate depends largely on the advertised product truly being 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 docu*entation proving (1) that you exist and you are the IP owner and (2) that you as the IP owner still have the rights to the IP in question. Only after you have submitted these docu*ents and had them verified by the e-commerce site can you even submit a takedown request. When you do submit your takedown request (as*uming everything goes well), most e-commerce sites will remove the counterfeit products within a week or so. When things don’t go well with a Chinese e-commerce site (which judging from the volume of phone calls and emails 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 posting the counterfeits of your products. This person is necessary to get to higher-level employees at the Chinese e-commerce site to explain to them why the listing does in fact violate your IP. Sometimes it seems