Anti-Counterfeiting Lawyers Worldwide.

An Anti-Counterfeiting lawyer takes proactive and aggressive steps to stop unauthorized copies of your product from reaching the market. They register your trademarks with customs authorities to block fake goods at the border and coordinate with private investigators to track down the factories or warehouses producing them. When fakes do appear, they send Cease and Desist letters, file lawsuits to freeze the counterfeiters’ assets, and manage “takedown” procedures on e-commerce sites to keep your digital marketplace clean.

You can legally force these websites to remove the products through a process known as “Notice and Takedown.” Your lawyer will file specific complaints under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) or platform-specific tools like Amazon Brand Registry to de-list the items immediately. If the problem is widespread, you can file a federal lawsuit to obtain a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that not only shuts down the scam websites but can also freeze their PayPal or bank accounts to seize their illegal earnings.

Yes, but only if you have properly recorded your trademark with the customs agency first. A lawyer files the necessary “recordation” documents with agencies like U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or the UK Border Force, essentially training officers to recognize and spot fakes of your product. Once recorded, if officers find a suspicious shipment, they will detain it and contact your lawyer to verify it is counterfeit before destroying the goods so they never reach customers.

Counterfeiting is a specific, more severe type of trademark infringement. Infringement happens when a product uses a logo or name that is “confusingly similar” to yours (like “Nikee” or “Adibas”) and might trick a consumer. Counterfeiting involves using an identical or “substantially indistinguishable” mark on the exact same type of goods (like a fake Rolex sold as a real Rolex) with the intent to deceive. Because counterfeiting is outright fraud, the legal penalties are much harsher, including potential prison time for the offenders.

You remove them by using the platforms’ specialized IP portals, such as Amazon’s “Project Zero” or Alibaba’s “IP Protection Platform.” A lawyer ensures you submit the correct legal proof—specifically your trademark registration number—to prove you own the brand. Submitting these claims correctly is critical; if you make a mistake or file a false claim, the platform may ban your brand from ever using their enforcement tools again.

Yes, and in many cases, you don’t even need to prove exactly how much money you lost. Because counterfeiters often hide their financial records, the law allows you to ask for “statutory damages” instead of actual lost profits. In the U.S., for example, federal law allows courts to award up to $2 million per counterfeit mark if the act was willful, which serves as a massive financial punishment to deter future theft.

Technically, you have some “common law” rights without registration, but in practice, you are powerless against counterfeiters without it. You generally cannot record your brand with Customs, access advanced takedown tools on Amazon, or sue for statutory damages without a federally registered trademark. Registration is the “key” that unlocks the legal tools necessary to shut down a counterfeiting operation effectively.

A lawyer acts as the “architect” of the investigation to ensure evidence is gathered legally so it holds up in court. They hire private investigators to conduct “test buys” to confirm the product is fake and trace the return address back to a physical warehouse. They then work with local law enforcement to obtain search warrants, allowing police to raid the facility and seize the inventory, computers, and financial records needed to identify the ringleaders.