Lululemon sues storefronts, accusing them of counterfeiting

Canadian sport and leisure clothing brand Lululemon has filed a trio of lawsuits in Illinois, accusing a long list of sellers on major e-commerce platforms of selling fake versions of its products.

The lawsuits refer to "numerous fully interactive, e-commerce stores" that it claims are offering counterfeits on online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Alibaba, Walmart, Wish.com, Etsy, DHgate, TikTok and Temu.

The clothing giant – which sells yoga-inspired athletic wear, lifestyle apparel, accessories, and personal care products and generates more than $10 billion a year – says it has a global anti-counterfeiting to tackle the knock-offs, which it describes as an "ongoing problem."

The lawsuits – which alleges that many of the defendants are based in China – point to the difficulties faced by brand owners in tackling this sort of activity.

Counterfeiters "hedge against the risk of being caught and having their websites taken down from an e-commerce platform by pre-emptively establishing multiple virtual storefronts."

Moreover, as these platforms generally do not require a seller to identify the business entity behind a listing, "counterfeiters can have many different profiles that can appear unrelated even though they are commonly owned and operated."

They also seem to be in cahoots with each other, using chat rooms on online messaging platform QQ.com and websites such as sellerdefense.cn and kuajingvs.com to share tactics for operating multiple accounts, evading detection, pending litigation, and potential new lawsuits.

It is also apparent that multiple stores sell counterfeits from the same source, given "similar irregularities" in their manufacture.

The suits allege trademark infringement and counterfeiting and false designation of origin, and are seeking injunctions on the use of its intellectual property by the defendant and trade in counterfeits, the immediate takedown of any listings associated with the defendants by the online marketplaces, an $2m in damages per count of wilful infringement.

In just one example last September, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized over 270 counterfeit Lululemon everywhere belt bags in Delaware that had arrived in two separate shipments from China and had a retail value of more than $13,000 if they had been authentic.

CBP said at the time that counterfeiters manufacture consumer goods using substandard materials and parts that either break prematurely or that could hurt consumers, and may also be sourced or manufactured in facilities that employ forced labour.

"We're committed to providing our guests with the highest quality product and we're aware that imitations of our products are produced and sold," said Lululemon in a statement. "To protect our customers and our brand, we're committed to addressing counterfeits. 

Photo by Marco Tjokro on Unsplash