Nike wins injunction against online counterfeiters

Phil Taylor, 23-Mar-2022

Nike has secured a preliminary injunction against hundreds of online stores it has accused of selling counterfeit versions of its products in a lawsuit filed in an Illinois court in January.

The suit alleges that the defendants were selling unauthorised and unlicensed Nike products – including footwear, athletic clothes, bags, backpacks and hats – in contravention of its registered trademarks on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Alibaba, Wish and DHgate.

It also took the e-commerce sites to task for failing to adequately verify the identity of sellers and being "unable or unwilling to prevent the rampant and flagrant listing of counterfeit products on their platforms."

The identity of the e-commerce sellers wasn't disclosed in the original complaint for fear of interfering with ongoing investigations and allowing the proceeds from the sale of counterfeits to be transferred out of reach overseas.

That's an issue facing Nike in another lawsuit that accused six Chinese banks with operations in the US with contempt, for failing to freeze the assets of hundreds of counterfeiters identified in litigation won by the company in 2017. Nike failed in its bid to held the banks liable for a $150m penalty in both a lower and appeal court.

Now, with the injunction granted, the list of defendants (all said to be from China or Hong Kong) has been disclosed, although as is often the case in this type of lawsuit the identities are limited to store aliases.

The suit alleges that many of the counterfeits on sale are from a common source and that some of the defendants are in a network with each other, keeping in contact via QQ.com chat rooms and through websites such as sellerdefense.cn, kaidianyo.com and kuajingvs.com "regarding tactics for operating multiple accounts, evading detection, pending litigation, and potential new lawsuits."

Nike is also pursuing a separate New York lawsuit against several hundred websites and social media sites it accuses of selling counterfeit Nike and Converse products.