How To Avoid Counterfeits, Knockoffs, And Other Trademark Infringement Violations

What is a trademark?

For example, a fashion brand uses a monogram on its dresses. This constitutes a trademark that distinguishes the brand's dresses from other dresses.

Examples of trademarks

• Word Mark: A trademark that consists only of words, letters, or numbers, without any design, stylization, or logo. In other words, it protects the text itself rather than how it looks visually. For example, "TikTok" or any other brand name.
• Logo or Design Mark: A trademark that protects the visual look of a brand such as its logo, symbol, design, monogram, or stylized text. It covers the way the mark appears (its design, color, and layout), not just the words themselves. For example, the TikTok logo:
• Slogan or Phrase Mark: A trademark that protects a short phrase or tagline used to identify a brand or its products. For example, TikTok's main tagline, "For you, by you."
• Pattern or Position Mark: A trademark that protects the distinctive patterns or the specific placement of a design, logo, or color on a product. It protects where and how they are affixed to the product, not the product itself or the design, logo, or color. For example, a fashion brand that uses a specific color on the soles of their women's footwear.
• Trade Dress: This covers the overall "look and feel" of a product or its packaging that makes it distinctive and recognizable as coming from a specific brand. It can include the product's shape, color, texture, graphics, layout, or any combination of these elements.

What is trademark infringement?

• Selling counterfeit or knockoff products. This includes products advertised with descriptions like "dupes," "similar to," "replicas," or "inspired by".
• Using a public figure's trademarked name, image, or likeness without their explicit consent.
• Using a famous cartoon character without explicit consent from its owner.

Examples of trademark infringement

Counterfeits

• Advertising or selling counterfeit products.
• Using or featuring a brand's trademark in your product listings, videos, and livestreams without the brand owner's consent.
• Altering or removing trademarks to hide that a product is fake.
• Any form of behavior or messaging through text, image, sound or video that implies the sale of counterfeit products.

Knockoffs

Infringement of registered name, image, or likeness

• Using a celebrity’s photo or name in promotional content without their consent.
• Selling products that feature a music artist or athlete's name or image without their consent.

Best Practices

These tips are not intended as legal advice and do not provide an exhaustive account of all the steps you may need to undertake to avoid trademark infringement.

✅ Dos

• Provide accurate brand information when creating a listing.
• List only original and authentic products. To verify this, you can:
  • Buy directly from the brand or authorized resellers and distributors.
  • Check where your supplier sourced the products.
  • Compare prices on other platforms. If your supplier’s price is much lower, the product may be counterfeit or knockoff and should not be listed.
• If you are listing an unbranded product, review its overall design and appearance, and any brand identifiers (like logos). Ensure there is no substantial similarity to any branded products.
• If our system detects that you are listing a branded product, it will prompt you to select the relevant brand or apply for brand authorization if you do not have it. Do not select "no brand" as this may result in violation points (penalties issued for policy violations).
• If your products or their packaging have tags or labels that contain brand identifiers (like logos and names), ensure that they are clear, visible and not hidden in the product images. Remove any stickers, smears, paper, or tape that might obscure them.
• If you are listing a branded product, ensure its branding is consistent across the listing. This means the brand must be the same across the product title, images, videos, description, and brand field. Any inconsistency may result in points deducted from your Account Health Rating (a metric that measures your performance as a seller), so be diligent about this.
• If you are listing a branded product, and you want to upload promotional videos, avoid featuring products from other brands in the content. The product's brand must be the ONLY brand that appears in the content. The only exceptions are:
  • If the product is a cobranded product.

Co-branded products are products that feature multiple brands. This occurs when one brand's product features or uses the other brand. For example, a sports brand collaborates with an athlete to feature their trademarked silhouette on its shoes.

• If you are selling a product that supports the function of a branded product (for example, razor refills for X brand's twin-blade razor). In this case, you can show the branded product in your promotional content. However, you must ensure that your product itself does not feature or promote the brand.
  • Use terms like "for", "made for", "intended for", "applicable for", "compatible with", "fits with" to make it clear which product you are promoting.
• If it is for the purpose of comparing your product against another branded product. For example, you can upload a video that compares the price of eyeliners from X and Y brands, but your product is an eyeliner from X brand.

• Always apply for brand authorization if you want to feature a public figure in your product listings.
  • If you are selling a product under a brand owned by a public figure (for example, X brand owned by Y celebrity), ensure you obtain Brand Authorization for both the brand and the public figure's right of publicity (the right to control the commercial use of one's identity) (X brand PLUS Y celebrity's name) if you intend to use the public figure's name or image in your product listing.
  • Click here to learn about our brand authorization process.

⛔ Don'ts

• Avoid using brands in your product listings (images, videos, or description) unless you have authorization to do so. Attempts to circumvent our brand checks are also strictly prohibited. This includes:
  • Using visual blockers to hide brand identifiers (like logos). Examples include:
    • Using stickers, smears, papers, text, or tape on products, tags, or packaging.
    • Applying mosaics or filters to product images or videos.
    • Using deliberately angled product images.
  • Using textual blockers to hide brand identifiers (like names). Examples include:
    • Modifying or misspelling with numbers, symbols, or special characters (for example, T1KT@k).
    • Modifying by using alternative characters (for example, TikT0k), repeating or switching characters (for example, TiiiikToook, TokTik), misspelling or shortening it (for example, TikTock, TT), or splitting it using spaces (for example, Tik Tok).
• Avoid listing products with clearly recognizable patterns from famous brands, even if the logo is not apparent on the product or its packaging, or in the images or videos you upload.
• Avoid listing any product whose selling point is its close similarity to a branded product.
  • Promotional phrases that violate this rule include:
    • inspired by X brand
    • similar to
    • as good as
    • same features as
    • it works the same as
    • duplicate of
    • smells like
  • Avoid descriptive terms such as:
    • replica
    • forged
    • mirror
    • copy
    • alike
    • duplicate
    • dupe
    • clone
    • like the original
    • as the original
    • imitation
    • high imitation
    • 1:1
    • mirror quality
    • lushentic grade
    • factory leakage
• Avoid using brand names in hashtags (for example, "#BrandName") to increase traffic, especially in video content. Using unauthorized brand names may result in product removal and violation points.
• Avoid using keywords associated with a public figure as a way to feature them in your product listing despite not having brand authorization for their right of publicity or brand. This is considered a right of publicity infringement and may result in enforcement actions such as product removal or violation points.
  • Keywords can include album names, song titles, nicknames, associated branding or products, and aliases.