Taobao steps up fight against fake LV

The leading Chinese online marketplace Taobao.com is expected to step up the crackdown on counterfeit Louis Vuitton products on its e-commerce platform.

According to Taobao's press release, the company and luxury brand Louis Vuitton signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Friday in Paris to combine efforts on fighting fake goods and protecting intellectual property rights.

The MOU is based on a number of proactive and preventive measures to fight against counterfeits, including a takedown system, which will shut the web page selling fake Louis Vuitton products. Louis Vuitton is the first brand that has such an agreement with Taobao.

Both Taobao and Louis Vuitton hope the cooperation will significantly contribute to building a fairer and more transparent e-business environment for online customers.

"Such collaboration is invaluable to us in terms of preventing the manufacture, transport and sales of counterfeit goods, online as well as offline," said Valérie Sonnier, global intellectual property director of Louis Vuitton.

"We are pleased to formalize our commitment and partnership with Louis Vuitton through the signing of this MOU", said Ni Liang, senior director of Internet security at Alibaba Group.

"Taobao.com is dedicated to the protection of intellectual property rights and the fight against counterfeiting, and we firmly believe that the collaboration between brands, platforms and government agencies will create visible and significant results in the intellectual property enforcement space," Ni said, adding that the company plans to establish similar cooperation with more brands in the future.