Counterfeit products, copycat websites, impersonation accounts and other forms of online brand misuse can damage revenue, reputation and customer trust. Because harmful activity can spread rapidly across multiple platforms and territories, manual searches alone are rarely enough.
Keltie combines AI-powered detection technology and scalable enforcement with the strategic oversight of experienced trade mark attorneys. We help clients identify potentially harmful activity, prioritise the issues that matter and take proportionate action to protect their brands. Technology provides the reach; our attorneys provide the judgement.
Thank you
Online brand protection involves identifying and addressing the unauthorised or misleading use of a brand across digital channels.
This may include:
The objective is not simply to find references to a brand. It is to identify activity that may infringe intellectual property rights, mislead customers or cause commercial and reputational harm.
Online infringement can appear across marketplaces, social media platforms, websites, apps and domain names. New listings, accounts and content can emerge continuously.
AI-powered monitoring and advanced detection technology help to search across these environments at scale, using techniques including image recognition and machine learning to identify potentially problematic activity for review.
Technology can also automate aspects of the enforcement process, enabling clear infringements to be reported efficiently through the mechanisms provided by online platforms.
This combination of continuous monitoring and automated enforcement makes it possible to address online brand misuse at a scale that would be difficult to achieve through manual searches and individual takedown requests alone.
Keltie’s attorneys provide the legal and strategic judgement behind that technology, determining what should be monitored, which threats matter and when further action is required.
Our attorneys can:
This helps ensure that enforcement activity reflects the strength of the client’s rights, the seriousness of the threat and the organisation’s wider commercial objectives.
Trade marks may be used without permission in product names, descriptions, images and seller profiles on online marketplaces.
Problems can include counterfeit goods, copycat products, misleading listings and seller activity that creates confusion about a connection with the brand owner.
Many marketplaces provide intellectual property reporting and takedown procedures. Where appropriate, identified listings can be assessed and reported through the platform’s enforcement process.
Effective marketplace enforcement requires accurate information about the rights relied upon and the nature of the complaint. Keltie’s attorneys help clients determine which sellers, listings, and patterns of activity warrant action, and how to prioritise enforcement.
A website may use a protected brand within its domain name, page content, product listings or visual identity. In more serious cases, an entire website may be designed to imitate a genuine business or mislead customers about its relationship with the brand owner.
The appropriate response depends on how the brand is being used, who operates the website, and the evidence available.
Keltie can investigate potential infringement and advise on the appropriate enforcement route. Depending on the circumstances, this may involve a takedown request, contact with the website operator or service provider, a domain name dispute procedure such as the UDRP or Nominet's Dispute Resolution Service or further legal action.
Social media can quickly spread misleading or infringing content to a large audience.
Potential issues include:
Social media platforms operate their own reporting processes and intellectual property policies. Technology can support the identification of suspicious accounts and content, while legal review helps distinguish harmful misuse from legitimate references, commentary or discussion.
Platform takedowns can provide an effective response to some forms of online misuse, but they will not resolve every case.
Further action may be required where:
Depending on the circumstances, Keltie can advise on escalation through cease and desist correspondence, domain recovery procedures, customs action or litigation.
Effective online brand protection requires both scale and judgement.
Keltie combines technology-led detection and scalable enforcement with legal oversight. Our trade mark attorneys set the enforcement strategy, make the judgement calls that technology cannot and advise when a routine takedown is not enough.
The result is an online brand protection service shaped around your rights, risks and commercial priorities.
To discuss how online brand protection could work for your business, contact our team.
Services you may be interested in
Decades of experience as attorneys, engineers and scientists in industry and research underpin the approach of our patent team. We are resolutely commercial and take time to understand your technology and your business.
Keltie’s patent attorneys are skilled not only in patent searching, but in interpreting the output of a patent search, and in helping you understand what it means for your technology and your business.
Why file a patent application? Patents can serve multiple purposes during their lifetime. They grant the owner a period to enjoy the exclusivity of their invention before others can use it. They give the owner powerful rights recognised in law to prevent infringement. But they are also valuable intellectual property which can enhance the ability of the owner to exploit their technology commercially through licensing or sale of the invention.
A key reason to invest in patent protection is to prevent others from copying your innovation. The patent system is intended to allow you, as a creator, to enjoy exclusivity around your technology for a set period of time. Patents allow you to leverage that exclusivity in order to develop your commercial position.
What is the Patent Box? Patent Box is a tax incentive scheme designed to encourage innovation within the UK. Introduced in 2013, it is a government-backed initiative whereby company profits which are derivable from patented technology are taxed at a lower rate than standard corporation tax. The system is intended to provide a strong and supportive environment for innovation within the UK.
The attorneys in our Trade Mark Group are among the leading brand protection experts in the UK and Europe. Through our associate network, we coordinate brand protection all over the world. The Group comprises multi-lingual European and UK trade mark attorneys with backgrounds in law, engineering and business. Their expertise extends through the full lifecycle, from searching and filing through to opposition and litigation, including enforcement and appeal. The Group also has vast experience in online enforcement.
Before you start using a trade mark, it is good practice to conduct a search to check that the trade mark is free to use. Conducting this type of search can be challenging because there are so many trade marks in use across many different fields of commerce. This makes it difficult for people without trade mark qualifications to navigate other brand-owners’ rights, and avoid or manage potential conflict.
How to file a trade mark The trade mark filing process can be relatively straightforward. In theory, all an applicant needs to do is access the relevant trade mark website, enter the word they wish to create a mark for, add the relevant goods and services to apply to the mark and pay the fee.
What is trade mark protection? Trade mark protection is a means of securing a monopoly right in a word, logo, shape, colour or sound that acts as an identifier of origin, allowing consumers to immediately determine the source of the goods or services offered under that particular trade mark or brand.
Your trade mark can represent years of investment, reputation-building and customer trust. Whether you're an established brand maintaining hard-won recognition or a growing business building your reputation in new markets, your mark is central to your identity and commercial value. Obtaining trade mark registration alone provides a foundation—but not full protection. Every day, new applications are filed that could conflict with your rights, weaken your brand's distinctiveness, dilute the reputation you're building or confuse your customers. Without active monitoring, these threats can go unnoticed until significant damage is done—undermining the goodwill you've worked to establish and making enforcement far more costly and complex.
Keltie's attorneys have an unusual wealth of expertise and experience in design rights. We help clients protect their designs, exploit their rights and mitigate risks.
If you are launching a new product there is a risk that it will infringe third party design rights. You can reduce the likelihood of costly conflict down the line, or at least be better informed of potential risk, by conducting a design search and clearance assessment before product launch. To do this, we search for relevant earlier rights - both registered and unregistered designs - help you assess the risk these pose to you, and guide you in any action that you might take to reduce and mitigate risk.
To protect your design with a registered right, a formal application must be made to the appropriate IP office. Obtaining a design registration is relatively quick (a matter of weeks or months in the EU and UK), which can be very useful for creators because it means rights and therefore protection can be granted swiftly.
As the owner of a design right, you are able to take action against another party if they market a product that is too visually similar to yours, without your permission. If their product is identical to your design, or if it differs in some ways but the impression the consumer takes from their product matches your design, you may be able to take action.
Counterfeit products, copycat websites, impersonation accounts and other forms of online brand misuse can damage revenue, reputation and customer trust. Because harmful activity can spread rapidly across multiple platforms and territories, manual searches alone are rarely enough. Keltie combines AI-powered detection technology and scalable enforcement with the strategic oversight of experienced trade mark attorneys. We help clients identify potentially harmful activity, prioritise the issues that matter and take proportionate action to protect their brands. Technology provides the reach; our attorneys provide the judgement.
What is online brand monitoring? Monitoring involves the process of observing and tracking uses of your brand online. It is a key aspect of your business’ operations to both understand your customers’ sentiment towards the brand and uncover any instances where your intellectual property rights have been infringed.
A domain name provides a platform for visibility of a brand in an online space. It is a destination address for the web traffic generated around a brand name. However, simply put, a domain is a word, and a word can be trade marked. Often, people secure a domain name first in their process of creating a new product or service. Whilst an online presence is a key part of launching a new brand, it is a mistake to think that because you own a domain name, you will be able to secure a matching trade mark. The process should work the other way around - where a domain name becomes an additional asset secured following the clearance and registration of a trade mark.
The attorneys at Keltie join forces with Customs Authorities, Border Forces and Online Enforcement Agencies to tackle infringement and counterfeiting head-on. Counterfeit goods pose a significant threat to the reputation of brands and unsuspecting consumers through a wide range of sectors.
People who work in this area
Jason has over 10 years’ experience in the IP profession. He regularly advises clients on the ownership, registration, enforceability and exploitation of IP rights.
Charlotte joined Keltie in 2008, after graduating from the University of Birmingham with a law degree, qualifying as a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney in 2013 and obtaining the IP Litigation Certificate in 2016. After spending 12 years at Keltie, Charlotte spent four years developing and heading up trade mark practices at London law firms. Charlotte re-joined Keltie in 2023 as Partner of the trade mark practice.
Sectors we work in
No matter what your product, aesthetics are invaluable. They are the first impression of a product: the contours, shapes, colours and textures that catch our eye as we see, use and interact with it. Not only does a distinct aesthetic have its own value, but it can enhance function, reinforce brand recognition and loyalty, and drive consumer choice.
Keltie's AI patent attorneys protect innovation across the full artificial intelligence stack, from machine learning architectures, training methods and foundation models to the AI-enabled products transforming every industry.
Branding has a key role to play in any industry. Brands are the flags that fly on behalf of a business or product. They are an identifier of origin that allows consumers to recognise where their products or services are coming from, so it is crucial that those brands resonate with consumers. They must also be kept free of problems that inhibit their ability to be the vehicle that drives a business.
Whether it is the development of novel materials and compounds, or the improvement of industrial processes to make them cleaner or more productive, chemical sciences underpin many of the aspects which are key to addressing the challenges of the 21st century. The diversity of innovation in chemistry is vast, with industry-leading companies combining resources and skills to create new products designed to solve problems and enhance our understanding.
Engineering inventions can be found in hugely complex products, or deceptively simple creations. They can encompass almost any field of technology, and often several fields at once.
More so than almost all other scientific fields, our knowledge, understanding and expertise in biology has increased at a phenomenal pace over the past few decades. Since the high throughput sequencing power used in the human genome project was unleashed at the beginning of the 21st century, multiple '-omics' disciplines now characterise a diverse field that offers such enormous potential for medicine, food production, wellbeing and human expression.
Modern technologies and advancements in product design and manufacturing contribute to our being able to lead a more sustainable and improved lifestyle. These in turn are increasing both the expectancy and quality of life we are able to enjoy as consumers by combatting health challenges and diseases, improving diagnostics and developing new therapies.
Materials science and the technologies involved in manufacturing processes underpin almost every element of technological development. The function, quality, longevity and financial value of products are all impacted by their material make up and the mechanisms involved in their production.
Precision medicine, also referred to as personalised or stratified medicine, is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention in which medical decisions, treatments and products are tailored to a subgroup of patients by taking into account the individual characteristics of each patient.
There are few greater challenges than starting a company from scratch but the rewards for taking a great idea or innovation and turning it into a successful business are substantial. At their inception, new companies grow quickly, driven by the dedication of owners and their will to make them profitable, but usually with limited financial resources. In order to become established and find a strong position within the market, startups need to attract external investment.
Sustainability or Green Technology is a hugely prominent sector as public consciousness, awareness and engagement with the ‘green agenda’ grows. As consumers, our behaviour can have a significant environmental impact and has prompted substantial strategic and financial support from national governments and the UN as they look to industry to develop sustainable solutions, products and technologies.
The rise of the internet and modern telecommunications has been underpinned by our ability to program computers to carry out complex operations. Almost every aspect of our lives has been advanced by developments in technology and software, making previously slow or complicated processes easier, faster and in some cases, cheaper.
11.01.2023
What is a trade mark?Trade marks can apply to words, logos, colours, shapes, drawings, even sounds and smells. They are a badge of origin that allows a customer to see a brand or product, recognise it and know how they can repeat that transaction again.
06.02.2024
Where fashion meets legality on social mediaUnlock the secrets of the fashion world's legal runway with our latest article, featuring Keltie's collaboration with CITMA and UKFT.
01.02.2023
UKIPO Requires UK Address for Service for International TMs and DesignsFollowing the recent decision of the Appointed Person (AP) in Tradeix Ltd v New Holland Ventures Pty Ltd BL (O/681/22) (Marco Polo Case), the UKIPO will now require a local address in the UK (or in Gibraltar or the Channel Islands) before any formal serving of documents in contentious proceedings relating to UK designations of International trade mark or design registrations. Failure to provide a UK address for service may result in a challenged registration being cancelled or an opposed trade mark being treated as withdrawn.
Thank you
