When you discover someone counterfeiting your registered trademark, the correct order is: fix evidence immediately, verify your own rights base, and finally choose the enforcement route by scale—platform complaints for speed, administrative enforcement for force, civil litigation for damages, and criminal referral to strike the source.
Step 1: Fix Evidence Immediately
Infringement evidence can be deleted or taken down at any time—collect it against the clock:
- Online infringement: screenshot and screen-record store pages, product links, sales figures, and reviews; where necessary, obtain webpage notarization or fix with trusted timestamps;
- Physical infringement: make notarized purchases of the infringing goods, keeping packaging, invoices, and logistics documents;
- Offline infringement: photograph and video stores, trade fair booths, and promotional materials, recording addresses and operator information.
Step 2: Verify Your Rights Base
Confirm that your trademark is in valid registration and that the approved goods or services cover the class in which the other side uses it; if the other side uses a similar sign on a nearby class, assess whether it constitutes use of a similar mark on similar goods, or whether cross-class protection as a well-known trademark can be asserted.
Step 3: Choose the Route by Scale
- Sold on e-commerce platforms: complain through the platform's IP protection system, requesting link removal—usually processed within days to two weeks;
- Counterfeiting and sales of some scale: complain to the market regulation authority where the infringement occurs for enforcement under Article 60 of the Trademark Law, which can confiscate and destroy infringing goods and impose fines;
- Large losses requiring compensation: file a trademark infringement suit, claiming actual losses, infringer's profits, or statutory damages under Article 63, with punitive damages of one to five times for malicious infringement;
- Serious circumstances suspected of crime: report to the public security authorities under Article 67 to pursue criminal liability such as the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks.
Combination Recommendations
The common combined playbook in practice: platform complaints for rapid takedown, administrative enforcement to destroy the production dens, and litigation to cover the losses. If you have not yet established a trademark monitoring mechanism, build one as soon as possible to keep the same kind of infringement from recurring.
If you are facing these issues, you may first run a trademark monitoring check on MyTMBee, confirm feasibility, and then decide whether to file—avoiding blind filings that waste official fees.