January 31, 2013

The National Football League (“NFL”) made an aggressive attempt this year to gain back its market share in merchandise sales that it lost to one of its biggest competitors–illegal counterfeiters.  The NFL teamed up with government authorities to implement “Operation Red Zone,” and successfully seized a record $13.6 million worth of knock-off merchandise.  Seizing counterfeit merchandise is no easy task in itself as many of the counterfeiters operate overseas and provide fake addresses when registering a domain name.  Recovering remedies for lost profits, however, is even harder.  It is not illegal to buy counterfeit merchandise, and courts have held that online sellers such as eBay or Amazon are not liable for counterfeit sales.  The NFL’s only option to prevent counterfeit sales, therefore, is to seize the merchandise from the source.