A small designer discovering knockoffs of their work online faces a very different reality than a company like Nike or Chanel. There is no in-house legal team and no six-figure enforcement budget to chase down every knockoff the moment it appears. The good news is that US law gives small designers real tools to fight back, several of which cost far less than most people assume, and none of which require the budget of a conglomerate to use. Here is what actually applies in 2026, and what each one is worth to a brand that cannot afford to fight every battle in court.
The Lanham Act’s Statutory Damages Provision
Federal trademark law lets a designer skip the hardest part of a counterfeiting case entirely. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1117(c), a plaintiff can elect statutory damages instead of proving actual losses, a courtroom exercise that usually requires expensive expert testimony most small brands cannot afford. The range runs from $1,000 to $200,000 per counterfeit mark per type of goods, and climbs as high as $2,000,000 per mark if the court finds the infringement willful. A small designer does not need to show exactly how much revenue a counterfeiter’s knockoffs cost them. They only need to prove the mark was used without permission, a far shorter path to a real settlement than the actual-damages route most first-time plaintiffs assume they are stuck with.
CBP e-Recordation
Registering a trademark with the USPTO opens the door to a second, cheaper layer of protection: recording it with US Customs and Border Protection. The fee runs $190 per class of goods, lasts for the life of the underlying registration, and costs only $80 to renew. Once recorded, CBP officers can detain and seize counterfeit shipments at the port of entry before they ever reach a customer. In fiscal year 2024, CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized nearly 33 million counterfeit goods that would have carried a combined retail value over $5.2 billion had they been genuine. Most of that enforcement starts with a designer who took the time to record their mark.
The INFORM Consumers Act
Anonymous sellers on marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy have gotten harder to hide behind since June 27, 2023, when the INFORM Consumers Act took effect. The law forces online marketplaces to collect and verify the identity of any seller who completes 200 or more transactions or $5,000 or more in revenue within a 12-month period, and to disclose that seller’s name and contact information to shoppers. A designer who spots a high-volume counterfeiter no longer has to fight an anonymous storefront. The marketplace already has that seller’s real identity on file, and the FTC and state attorneys general can enforce the disclosure requirement directly against platforms that ignore it. That enforcement authority matters because it puts pressure on the platform itself, not just the individual seller who can otherwise disappear and reopen under a new storefront name the same week.
The Trademark Modernization Act’s Injunction Tools
Getting a court to stop a counterfeiter immediately used to require proving irreparable harm from scratch, an evidentiary burden that favored large companies with resources to spare. The Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 changed that by giving trademark owners a rebuttable presumption of irreparable harm once they show a likelihood of success on the merits. That presumption shifts the burden onto the counterfeiter to prove the designer would not actually be harmed, a much easier position for a small brand trying to secure a fast injunction before a knockoff season sells out.
Criminal Referral Under the Trademark Counterfeiting Act
Not every counterfeiting case belongs in civil court. Large-scale operations, the kind moving thousands of units through organized supply chains, fall under the Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984, which makes intentional trafficking in counterfeit goods a federal crime. A first offense carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for an individual, or $1,000,000 for a company, with repeat offenses reaching $5 million and twenty years. A small designer facing an operation clearly beyond their own resources to sue can refer the case to Homeland Security Investigations instead of paying for a civil suit alone.
Where Every Protection Actually Starts
None of these tools work without the same starting point: a federal trademark registration. CBP recordation requires one. Statutory damages under the Lanham Act depend on one. The presumption of irreparable harm attaches to registered marks facing infringement claims, not to a name a designer has simply been using and hoping nobody copies. A designer who launches without registering a name or logo forfeits every protection built into US law for exactly this problem, long before they ever need it, and the cost of registering upfront is a fraction of what any single enforcement action would run without one.
This article is general information for career planning purposes and is not legal advice. Speak with a licensed attorney or your school’s career services office for guidance specific to your situation.
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