Using the INFORM Consumers Act to Combat China’s Online Counterfeiters

Authors

• Daniel C.K. Chow, The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law

Abstract

Everyday millions of counterfeit goods are shipped from suppliers on Alibaba’s website based in China to retailers on Amazon, Walmart, and other e-commerce platforms and sold to U.S. consumers. The significance of this massive pipeline seems to have eluded brand owners and U.S. government authorities. Most brand owners have concentrated their efforts on suppressing counterfeits on U.S. e-commerce markets after the counterfeits have already appeared on their sites. These efforts have proven to be ineffective as once millions of counterfeits are commingled with genuine products on the internet their suppression becomes an impossible task. The key to successful interdiction of counterfeits is to prevent counterfeits from entering the pipeline in the first place. Alibaba presents a particularly troublesome problem as its power and prestige in China shield it from law enforcement by Chinese authorities.

This Article proposes a new approach based on using The INFORM Consumers Act, a federal law recently enacted in 2023 that is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general. The Act provides a promising method that brand owners can use to impose direct legal obligations on Alibaba, Amazon, and Walmart under the supervision of the FTC. A major advantage of the suggested approach is that it imposes U.S. legal obligations on Alibaba without requiring the cooperation of PRC enforcement authorities. The enforcement of these obligations by the FTC can effectively limit counterfeits from entering the pipeline at both the suppliers’ end in China and at the retailers’ end in the United States.

Recommended Citation

Daniel C. Chow, Using the INFORM Consumers Act to Combat China’s Online Counterfeiters, 33 J. Intell. Prop. L. (2026).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/jipl/vol33/iss2/2