Louis Vuitton Malletier SA and Louis Vuitton U.S. Manufacturing Inc. filed a complaint on December 3rd to the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington to begin an investigation of five companies, both in the U.S. and abroad, for allegedly importing and selling counterfeits and knockoff Louis Vuitton products. This includes everything from handbags to luggage and packaging.

According to Bloomberg.com, one of the companies named in the complaint is a Chinese couple from California. They set up a series of shell companies in China and the U.S. to make and sell knockoffs.

If the International Trade Commission finds these allegations accurate, it could prevent the counterfeit goods from entering the U.S. or a cease and desist order against all of the companies Louis Vuitton named in their case from importing into the United States.

As a brand, Louis Vuitton has been fighting counterfeiting for over a century. Georges Vuitton, son of Louis Vuitton, created the signature Monogram Canvas in 1896 in order to fight counterfeits. It was registered as a trademark in the early 1900s and in 1908 the first counterfeiter was prosecuted and sentenced in France. Louis Vuitton now works closely with law enforcement to stop the imitation of their products. On average, the brand aids 29 anti-counterfeiting raids, 91 new legal proceedings and closes three websites associated with counterfeit products per day.

(Image taken from Louis Vuitton website)

The best way to support Louis Vuitton and avoid counterfeits is to buy directly from their authorized retailers. There are only three places you can buy an official Louis Vuitton product and they are from the Louis Vuitton retail stores, online at www.louisvuitton.com and www.eluxury.com. With respect to vintage and second-hand boutiques, our best advice is to do your homework before you buy.

When Englishman John Donne famously wrote that no person is an island, it’s likely he wasn’t thinking about an actual land mass. It’s also likely he wasn’t thinking specifically about his neighbors in Ireland. And though it's been said that the only things on the Emerald Isle you’ll run into as frequently as poets may be barstools (or perhaps some combination of the two), the fake trade has brought yet another poet’s words to bear on Hibernia. As described in a recent piece that ran in the Irish Independent, the country’s counterfeiting problem is expanding.

Now, where sham goods are concerned, it would seem no island is…well…an island, either.

Celine Naughton’s fine survey ably shifts apertures between the global and local effects of the epidemic and focuses firmly on how the purchase of phony goods via the internet has been so detrimental to business that the Irish Fashion and Footwear Federation, the trade group representing the industry’s retailers, will shut down because many of the organization’s members can’t afford to remain with them. It’s a compelling portrait of how difficult competition has become for legitimate businesses.
 
Naughton is similarly concerned about the second party retailers and e-tailers who are being undercut by counterfeiters to the point that wholesale prices can’t compete. When legitimate smaller players are forced out of the space, it is not only the selection of goods available to the public that shrinks, but, as is always the case with sham products, the quality is atrocious.
 
The manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods injures nearly every party along the production and distribution chain. We say ‘nearly’ because, like any illegal activity, there are always a few criminal masterminds who benefit immensely. But together, we can curb their illicit profits. Share your knowledge of the counterfeiting industry with friends and family and encourage them to pass it along to others. Each time our collective awareness stops the purchase of a counterfeit item, we get closer to stalling the demand for these sham goods entirely. Stop the demand and the supply will follow. Instantly.
 
Just because the fake trade hides in the shadows doesn't mean we can't talk about it in vivid terms.  So keep having these conversations. Anything that helps fight this epidemic is poetry to our ears.

Image from NASA's Earth Observatory 

Thailand’s Deputy Minister of Commerce has pledged that in the coming 2-8 months the country will show significant gains in its crackdown and prosecution of intellectual property crimes. As evidence of Thailand’s increasingly harsh climate for counterfeiters, the Deputy Minister announced that over 1.7 million fake articles had been confiscated in the first 5 months of the current year.

Read the full story. 

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are keeping a close watch on “purse parties,” the potentially dubious get-togethers where knock-off luxury purses and accessories are sold. ICE investigator William Wallrapp told a Nebraska television station that global organized crime rings were responsible for selling counterfeit products to Americans who may see it as “no big deal.” Wallrapp also said that the U.S. government has opened a home base in Virginia specifically to investigate counterfeit criminal activity. 

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