Nearly 60 years after her death, Marilyn Monroe is still popular, illegally, with mugs, T-shirts, jewelery and other products that use her name.
Authentic Brands Group LLC, which owns the name of the late movie star and the rights to the phrase “Diamond is a Girl’s Best Friend,” popular for her most famous song, freezes the assets of dozens of virtual stores selling counterfeit goods. Won a court order to do.
The company said in a court document that it would work with marketplaces such as Amazon.com, Alibaba, EBay, Joom and Wish to shut down the site, but that’s not enough. Documents filed in court show elaborate and often secret operations to identify counterfeiters, file sealed proceedings, and seek judicial orders before they know that the storefront is being targeted.
Anthony Drayer, a trademark lawyer for Skadden Arps in New York, said:
Dreyer, who was not involved in the case, specializes in sports and entertainment intellectual property and represents the National Hockey League in a proceeding to close counterfeit goods. He said it was not always possible to seize illegal goods and it would not solve the problem.
“You want to go up the chain further, and you want to make it harder for them to do business,” Dreyer said. “The sophistication of various payment methods makes it difficult to freeze assets and eventually seize them.”
