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Luxury clothing brand Chanel has continued its fightback against online fakes by filing a lawsuit against a group running a counterfeit clothing website.
The complaint, filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida yesterday, July 12, accused the unnamed group of selling goods bearing “nearly identical” marks to Chanel and of “substantially different” quality.
“Defendants are defrauding Chanel and the consuming public for their own benefit,” said Chanel in the complaint.
It added that those involved “are either related or, at a minimum, cannot help but know of each other’s existence”, it added.
Chanel is the owner of numerous trademarks for its goods, including US number 1,510,757 for the ‘Chanel’ mark used with sunglasses and 4,241,822 for the two interlinked C’s used with coats and jackets.
The company accused 25 websites of selling counterfeit goods, many of which included features such as ‘live chat’ and an option to pay in dollars.
Chanel is seeking injunctive relief, $100,000 per infringing domain, attorneys’ fees and anything else the court deems just and proper.
Last month, TBO reported that Chanel had taken on 39 defendants allegedly working together to sell counterfeit goods.
In the previous month, it obtained an injunction against another counterfeiter who was found guilty of selling phone cases online bearing the trademarks of the clothing brand.
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