Counterfeiting in Pakistan runs from obvious market copies to sophisticated operations producing packaging indistinguishable from the original. For a brand owner the question is never whether copies exist; it is which of the available tools to use, in what order.

First: register the rights

Enforcement in Pakistan is built on registration.

Trade marks — registration with the Trade Marks Registry under the Trade Marks Ordinance 2001 is what gives you the strongest and simplest route. Unregistered marks rely on passing off, which requires proving reputation and is slower, costlier and less certain.

Register the word mark, the logo, and the classes you actually trade in, and do it before you appoint a distributor. Distributors registering their principal's mark in their own name is a recurring and painful problem. See trade mark registration and dealership and distribution agreements.

Copyright protects packaging artwork, labels, manuals and photography — often the fastest route against a copy that mimics the get-up. See copyright for creators and content businesses.

Designs and patents where relevant.

The enforcement routes

1. Criminal complaint and raid. The most effective tool against a manufacturer or a warehouse.

Counterfeiting engages offences under the Trade Marks Ordinance, the Copyright Ordinance and the Penal Code, and enforcement involves the police and, for IP-related matters within its remit, the FIA. IPO-Pakistan coordinates the national IP framework.

In practice a raid requires preparation: evidence of the rights, evidence of the infringing goods, a test purchase, an identified location, and an application to the appropriate forum. Raids conducted without proper groundwork produce seizures that fall apart later.

2. Civil suit. Injunction, delivery up and destruction of infringing goods, damages or an account of profits, and — most usefully — an interim injunction plus an order for seizure. Speed matters, and an application made promptly is treated very differently from one brought after months of tolerance.

Suits concerning IP rights are brought in the appropriate forum, and there is a dedicated tribunal structure for intellectual property matters. See stay orders and injunctions.

3. Customs border measures. Customs can act against infringing goods at import. For a brand facing imported counterfeits this stops the problem at the port rather than chasing it through the market, and it is underused by rights holders.

Recording your rights and building a working relationship with the enforcement staff is what makes this effective. See customs valuation and duty demands and permits and restricted imports.

4. Online takedowns. Where the counterfeits are sold on marketplaces or social media, platform enforcement is usually the fastest remedy, and registration makes it far more reliable. Run it alongside a PECA complaint where the seller is impersonating your brand or your business.

See online blackmail, fake accounts and takedowns and e-commerce and online seller disputes.

5. Cease and desist. Cheap, quick, and effective against small sellers who did not know. Ineffective — and a warning to move stock — against organised operations. Choose deliberately: sending a notice to a counterfeiter you intend to raid is a mistake.

See legal notices — how and when.

Building a case that works

  • Test purchases, documented, with invoices and packaging retained intact
  • Photographs of the goods, the packaging, the premises and the signage
  • A comparison setting out precisely what is copied — mark, get-up, artwork, batch coding
  • Evidence of the rights: registration certificates, licences, chain of title
  • Evidence of your use and reputation in Pakistan
  • Identification of the actual defendant — the manufacturer or importer, not only the shopkeeper. Cases that stop at retail level achieve very little

A realistic strategy

Brand owners who succeed in Pakistan tend to do three things.

Target upstream. One manufacturer or importer matters more than fifty stalls.

Combine routes. A customs recordal, a raid on the source, platform takedowns, and civil proceedings against the significant players — run together, not sequentially.

Be consistent. Sporadic enforcement teaches the market that tolerance is likely. Regular, visible action changes behaviour.

And be honest about the limit: enforcement suppresses and disrupts; it does not eliminate. Budget for it as an ongoing cost of holding a valuable brand.

Parallel imports and "genuine" goods

Not every unauthorised sale is a counterfeit. Genuine goods placed on the market abroad and imported without the brand owner's authorisation raise different, and more contestable, questions than fakes. So do goods sold outside an exclusive distributor's territory.

These are contract and distribution problems as much as IP problems, and they need to be analysed as such rather than treated as counterfeiting.

If you are the one accused

Retailers and importers are frequently accused, sometimes wrongly. If a notice or a raid arrives:

Do not destroy or move stock. That converts a defensible position into an indefensible one.

Produce your supply chain — invoices, import documents, the supplier's details. A retailer who bought from an apparently legitimate supplier, with documents, is in a materially better position than one who cannot say where the goods came from.

Check the complainant's rights. Registration, classes, validity, and whether the mark is actually being used.

Take advice on both fronts at once — the criminal proceedings and any civil injunction. See bail after arrest and quashing an FIR.

Then look upstream. Your claim against the supplier who sold you the goods is a real one. See recovering money owed.

For foreign brand owners

You do not need a presence in Pakistan to hold and enforce rights here, and you should register before you appoint anyone or ship anything. Where you do establish, see branch, liaison office or subsidiary and franchising and distribution into Pakistan.

How the firm can help

We register and maintain trade marks, copyrights and designs, prepare and execute enforcement — criminal complaints and raids, customs recordals and border action, platform takedowns, and civil proceedings with interim relief — and design enforcement programmes for brands facing sustained counterfeiting.

We also defend businesses accused of infringement, including where a complaint is being used as commercial leverage.

See intellectual property, or contact the firm.