According to a lawsuit recently filed in the U.S. district court for the southern district of New York, Nike has filed legal action against 589 websites and 676 social media accounts located mainly in China, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other foreign jurisdictions. Nike claims they are selling counterfeit versions of Nike and Converse footwear, and the global sportswear manufacturer is allegedly seeking an injunction on the sale of the offending items, as well as damages, although the identity of some of the defendants is unknown. The websites are said to be grouped into 42 counterfeiting networks and have been actively “advertising, offering to sell, and/or selling counterfeit Nike or Converse products to U.S. consumers”, according to the complaint. These include websites such as perfectkicks.me, as well as associated social media accounts on Instagram, Wechat and Whatsapp.
Reportedly, Nike wants to force the domain name registrars for the sites to disable them and make them untransferable, and is also asking for statutory damages of US$100,000 per infringing domain name and punitive damages on account of the defendants’ “gross, wanton, wilful, and malicious conduct.”
Source: Securing Industry
