Systematic protection from clone apps and counterfeits
We will work out which parts of your product the law actually protects, put the paperwork under them, and turn every clone into the same short complaint instead of a new investigation.
When you need protection from clones
A clone of your product appeared
Same screens, same flow, a different name. It reached the store faster than you did, and the reviews under it are answering your support questions.
Only the mechanics were copied
Nothing was taken pixel for pixel, and yet the product is yours. Everything here depends on what exactly you can point at.
Counterfeit copies sell as yours
Physical copies carry your artwork and your name. Buyers who get a bad one leave the review on your listing and ask you for the refund.
You have no proof of authorship
The files are on a laptop, the contractor was paid by transfer, and nothing ties the work to a date. Without that chain a complaint has nothing to point to.
One takedown, three new copies
Each removal starts from scratch: find, prove, write, wait. Without a repeatable file, every copy takes your time from the beginning again.
What you get
- A list of protectable parts
- Proof of authorship with dates
- One complaint route per store
- Registrations that carry the claim
How to report counterfeit goods and clones
What the law actually protects
Copyright covers the expression: your code as written, your artwork, your text, your music. It does not cover the idea behind them, the procedure or the method of operation as such — so the copyright treaty says, and that is why a copied rule set cannot rest on copyright alone. What is left for the rule set is the name it is sold under, the look it is dressed in and the contracts of the people who built it.
What proves it is yours
A complaint stands on a chain: who made each part, on what contract, and when. We will put dates on the build, keep the released versions, collect the signed assignments from contractors and register what is worth registering. We will build that chain in advance: after a clone appears it has to be put back together from other people’s traces, and the parts nobody dated are the ones that stay missing.
What the store asks for
Every storefront has its own door. Some run one dispute form for every kind of right and ask you to pick the type; others split copyright and trademark into separate routes with separate evidence. One large store also runs a policy against app titles and icons so similar to existing products that users may be misled — a rule of the platform itself: it turns on similarity and does not ask you to prove copying.
When counterfeit products carry your name
Physical copies carrying your name and artwork are a different job from a software clone. Here the work is serial numbers, authorised sellers, marketplace brand programmes and the customs route, which rests on a registered mark or on copyright. The proof is the same proof, gathered once and reused.
Watching the name across marketplaces and domains is brand protection; working out what you own before the complaint is an intellectual property audit; a complaint the other side has answered is claims and responses.
What a complaint needs from you
- The build and its released versions
- Contracts with whoever wrote the code and drew the art
- Links to the copy, with dates
- Registrations, if any exist
What a clone actually copies
The name
A close name or icon is the part a large app store handles under a rule of its own against confusion, so a complaint can lean on that rule and on your rights in the name.
The art and the sound
Screens, sprites, music and voice are expression and are protected as they were made. This is where a side-by-side comparison earns its keep, screen by screen.
The code
Written code is protected as a literary work in its own right. What has to be compared are the builds themselves: strings, resources, the order of files.
The rules of play
A mechanic on its own is a method of operation, and copyright leaves it open. What can still be defended is how it was expressed and how the product was named.
Sources: the WIPO Copyright Treaty, article 2: protection extends to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such; and article 4 of the same treaty protects computer programs as literary works; it has 119 parties, and the older Berne Convention has 182. One large app store bans names and icons a user could mistake for an existing product.
Stages of work
Taking the product apart — 2–3 working days.
We will list what the product is made of: name, screens, art, audio, code, text, and the parts that came from outside. Each line gets an owner and a document, or a note that it has neither.
Putting a right under each part.
Some parts are protected the moment they are made; some need a registration to be worth anything in a complaint. We will say which is which and file what is worth filing.
Building the proof file.
Dated builds, signed assignments, release notes, store listings as they looked. Every future complaint will copy from this file, and we write it only once.
The first complaint and its template.
We will file on the current copy through the route its storefront has for that, and keep the wording that worked. What was one investigation becomes a form to fill in.
When the store refuses.
A refusal names a reason: wrong right chosen, thin evidence, a counter-notice from the other side. Each of those has an answer, and the next step may be a claim letter or a court.
Repeat copies and the shared file.
Copies come back under new names and new builds. We keep the evidence in one place, and every later complaint takes it from there.
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