On February 7, 2017, Alibaba released a message saying that it had blocked an “IP hooligans” for the first time as a declaration of war against the “black hat” industry of bad-faith complaints. Specifically, Alibaba issued an order on blocking a bad-faith IP agency firm called Hangzhou Wangwei Technology Co., Ltd., which harassed and extorted Taobao sellers through false complaints and called on the brand owners to terminate cooperation with this firm.

  According to Alibaba, losses of hundreds of millions of RMB were suffered by millions of Taobao sellers, and the “black hat” industry upon which numerous “IP hooligans” rely on for benefits has been found to be behind farces similar to the complaints filed by Li Gui (representing counterfeits) against Li Kui (representing genuine articles), for example, the fabrication of the “WeChat” trademark registration certificate and the personal signature of Huateng Ma (founder of WeChat), the preemptive registration of the “NIKE” trademark and the filing of a complaint against NIKE’s official flagship store on that basis, and the establishment of a fake “official” website of a brand and the filing of an infringement complaint by the real brand owner.

  Excerpted from IP Daily