Many
times, when shopping online for popular name brand clothes like Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Dolce & Gabana, etc, people seek to find the best and authentic
deals of the brand. Sometimes, it’s easier than not to decipher whether an
online site is just an imitator or not, but in 2014, it is getting easier for
imitators to appear just as authentic. According to an article on Intellectual Property Today, the brand name True Religion was awarded over eight hundred million dollars against
imitation retailer sellers from China. This article was interesting because it
made me think of two things: 1) the extremity of retail counterfeit and 2)
whether an ordinary consumer would be allowed to file against them. These two
points shed light on the problems that the internet imposes on registered
patents and registered trademarks.
The
expansion of the Internet has proven to be very beneficial in today’s society
but it has also opened its shared of disadvantages as well. Online shopping is
done more frequently now than it has ever been done before and as a result, many
retail companies have online stores. However, retail imitators or counterfeiters are also sneaking up behind these companies and creating fake
online stores. The problem this creates is that the revenue of sales is being
taken away from the real company and their customers are being ripped off by
the imitators.
In the
True Religion case, true religion won against the counterfeit companies
operating out of China. But, what happened to all the customers who got ripped
off? Would it be fair to prohibit them to seek money from the counterfeit
companies who ripped them just because True Religion sued them already? In many
cases, a consumer would be able to file a civil suit against these counterfeit
companies on grounds of breach of contract, etc. Nonetheless, retail counterfeit is a problem that needs to be dealt with.
But how can it be stopped? To me, it only seems like it can be dealt with case
by case. It just seems to large of an issue to track down every company on the
internet and make sure that every site conducting business under its name is
not a counterfeit site.
