The FBI also will serve as a bridge between brand owners and third-party marketplaces in an effort to mitigate instances of the manufacture, distribution, advertising and sale of counterfeit products. Crimes will then be investigated by the FBI and other partners of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, and finally prosecuted by the Department of Justice.
Investigations by The Counterfeit Report, a popular anti-counterfeiting website, provide details and insight into the e-commerce websites ecosystems to advertise, list, manipulate, sell, finance, ship and encourage the sale counterfeit and fake products. The Counterfeit Report received over 2,000 counterfeit products from test purchases on Alibaba subsidiary AliExpress, Amazon and eBay. Alarmingly, the sellers and many of the fake products often remained, and sales continued to unsuspecting consumers. The test purchases disclosed counterfeit product sales to hundreds-of-thousands of duped online buyers who often will never know they purchased a fake product.
Part of the ease with which counterfeit goods are bought and sold on e-commerce websites is that existing regulations don’t burden the websites with removing listings of counterfeit goods, and the lack of any penalties for the e-commerce websites. Furthermore, the e-commerce websites don't notify consumers when they purchase a counterfeit and may be eligible for a refund.
Several manufacturers have filed lawsuits to protect their intellectual property rights.
Alibaba
