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The owner of Tiffany jewelry trademarks sued the operators of 223 websites Monday in Las Vegas, claiming they’re selling counterfeit products online.
Tiffany (NJ) LLC’s lawsuit, alleging trademark counterfeiting, trademark infringement, cyberpiracy and unfair competition, was filed in U.S. District Court for Nevada.
The lawsuit says Nevada is one of the states where the defendants conduct business through websites, many with Tiffany-sounding names. Most of the defendants likely live in China or other nations with lax trademark enforcement systems, the lawsuit says.
"The recent explosion of counterfeiting over the Internet has created an environment which requires Tiffany to file a massive number of lawsuits, often it turns out, against the same individuals and groups, in order to protect both consumers and itself from the ill effects of confusion and the erosion of the goodwill connected to the Tiffany brand," the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says the alleged counterfeiters are sophisticated, using counterfeits of Tiffany’s name and trademarks "in order to make their websites selling illegal goods appear more relevant and attractive to search engines across an array of search terms."
The lawsuit asks for injunctions barring the defendants from infringing on Tiffany’s marks, seeks an order requiring Internet search engines and domain-name registrars to "cease facilitating access" to infringing websites and asks the court to cancel or transfer to Tiffany the allegedly infringing website domain names.
The entities operating the websites at issue have not yet responded to the allegations. Tiffany is based in Parsippany, N.J.