With digital impersonation, counterfeiting and grey-market goods evolving at unprecedented speed, brand protection companies play a crucial role in supporting legal teams with IP protection.
Their work bridges the gap between online intelligence, field investigations, and the evidentiary standards required in complex litigation or enforcement programs.
Here’s a detailed look at how online brand protection companies like SnapDragon Monitoring collect, preserve, and deliver evidence that law firms (and the brand owners they represent) rely on.
1. Online Monitoring
Online brand protection begins with discovery: scanning online channels including marketplaces, social media, messaging apps, websites, domains, and search engine results to find counterfeit goods, trademark violations and other incidences of intellectual property abuse.
For example, at SnapDragon Monitoring we use proprietary technology (including scrapers), APIs (both directly offered by the platforms and third parties), intelligent assistance tools, proxies, artificial intelligence (AI), and manual effort to discover listings from across the web.
This allows us to:
- Detect counterfeit listings, unauthorised resellers, and copycat storefronts operating with your brand assets.
- Identify pages, posts, and influencers selling unauthorised products.
- Track rogue websites impersonating the brand image or illegally distributing goods.
- Spot deceptive advertising and fraudulent paid search campaigns.
We’re happy to discuss additional sources and bespoke requirements.
This is where your brand protection partner will greatly accelerate your detection efforts, with their knowledge of the blocking technologies employed, their relationships with the platforms, their tooling, and their multi-lingual teams of analysts spread throughout the world.
At SnapDragon Monitoring we currently employ a global team, fluent in 20+ languages, in the UK, US, Europe, China, and Africa. This is especially helpful for international trademark disputes requiring local knowledge.
2. Seller and Network Identification
Once a suspect listing or channel is identified, brand protection programs work to uncover the individuals or organisations behind it.
Mining publicly available information is the first step: including company records, phone numbers, emails, registration of domain names, and social media profiles.
Undercover investigation can also be effective, messaging sellers to obtain more details on their operations or to trace shipping origins.
Identifying when the same seller operates across multiple platforms (using patterns in product photos, descriptions, pricing, or communication style) helps to build a cross-platform correlation and surfaces a picture of the relationships involved.
These insights help law firms build stronger, more targeted cases for enforcing trademark disputes, design rights, and other intellectual property law.
3. Highlighting the Relevant Data
The sheer scale of data discovered can lead to a daunting realisation. It’s simply not possible to sift through it all manually. AI is no longer considered a bonus when carrying out brand protection strategies; it’s now fundamental to any operation seeking to protect a brand’s intellectual property.
SnapDragon Monitoring employs a varied suite of machine learning modules to accurately detect relevant listings among the noise, including an active learning cycle which continually improves based upon previous confirmed detections.
We also use:
- Logo detection to find evidence of intellectual property theft within images.
- Optical character recognition (OCR) to detect misused trademarks.
- Image similarity analysis using pixel-level comparisons.
- Colour-range detection, and more.
At the same time, we recognise that we can never truly replace the human expertise involved in the decision-making process when it comes to delicate legal matters. That’s why we favour Augmented Intelligence (AuI), an approach whereby we support our team by giving them the AI tools they need to do their jobs as efficiently as possible.
We empower them to protect your clients’ IP portfolios with the confidence that their knowledge will be respected. We avoid resorting to a “whack-a-mole” approach, which could cause damage to the client/platform relationship and potentially risk complaints and countersuits.
4. Source Files, Screenshots, and Audit
It used to be easy to prove that a listing existed previously on the internet. A web page could be downloaded, stored, and opened later, still accurately representing the original listing. However, the complexity of modern sites has diminished the value of downloaded HTML files. While these downloads can still be somewhat useful, screenshots (and the reputation of the brand protection software company) are far more important nowadays. As is an immutable audit trail, accurately reflecting the actions performed on a listing from when it was first discovered, the approval of the brand for its removal, and its subsequent enforcement activities.
5. Covert Test Purchases
One of the most critical steps in evidence gathering (particularly for industries like fashion & retail or food & beverage) is sometimes the test buy, which provides physical proof of counterfeit or unauthorised products.
To avoid detection whilst doing this, SnapDragon Monitoring uses aliases, neutral payment methods, and unbranded delivery addresses. Every step – from the listing screenshot to payment confirmation – can be timestamped and archived, creating a documented purchase trail. Our analysts can even carry out genuine vs. counterfeit comparison and trade dress analysis.
Test purchases often form the backbone of legal complaints, takedown requests, and other IP enforcement actions.
6. Reporting and Legal Support
All collected data is compiled into structured, litigation-ready materials for law firms. Through the diligence of brand protection specialists, law firms can obtain comprehensive evidence reports outlining findings, timelines, seller identities, and product analysis.
While SnapDragon Monitoring uses the provided mechanisms for removal of infringing material on the platforms monitored, we deliver the proof necessary to support legal claims in the rare cases when that is not enough.
This step transforms raw intelligence into actionable legal strategy.
7. Why This Partnership Model Matters
Brand protection companies provide the investigative backbone that enables law firms to pursue counterfeiters, unauthorised sellers, and digital impersonators with confidence.
By combining advanced online monitoring, forensic documentation, and test purchases these brand protection firms ensure that legal and trademark teams have reliable, admissible, and comprehensive evidence.
The result is stronger enforcement, better protection of intellectual property rights, and a safer marketplace for consumers, while reducing the costs involved.
Learn more about brand protection software from Snapdragon Monitoring, or view our case studies for further insight into how we help legal firms and brand owners protect their IP works.
Kieron Smith
SnapDragon | CTO
Want to see how SnapDragon’s AI can protect your brand?
If you would like to explore how SnapDragon can accelerate your online brand protection, get in touch to schedule a demo. We would love to show you what’s possible.
