(By You Yunting) Due to their lower prices, de-identified products — those with anti-counterfeit codes removed — are highly popular on e-commerce platforms. These discounted offerings, however, undermine brand owners’ price control mechanisms, leading to frequent trademark infringement lawsuits against sellers. While Chinese courts generally decline to find infringement where the de-identified goods are demonstrably genuine and produced by the brand owner, many small and medium-sized sellers are nonetheless held liable even when dealing in authentic goods. Today, let us analyze how courts might equitably balance brand protection against commercial freedom in such disputes.