Abbey Fleck was only 8 years old in 1993 when she came up with the idea for a piece of microwave cookware for making bacon that her father, Jon, turned into a multimillion-dollar business.
Last week, Fleck, now 33, and still a partner with her father in a business that produces Makin Bacon-branded cooking trays, said the business is threatened by online peddlers such as China's Alibaba Group and eBay that they say allow counterfeiters to sell on their websites.
Fleck said she is tired of seeing knockoff products in boxes that feature her photo and the trademarked name of her product that contain mostly plastic junk that melts in a microwave oven.
"A lot of counterfeiting is happening internationally," Fleck said. "It used to be one person would counterfeit and you'd go after him. Now, you get lawyers and it's like playing virtual Whac-A-Mole. Thanks to Alibaba and eBay and Amazon, the counterfeiters have anonymity. They sometimes cut off some sellers from their websites, and they will pop up the next day with a different name selling the same product.
"The counterfeiters sell an inferior, dangerous product that melts in the microwave into molten grease. And it has my name and face on that product. At this point, our company is in danger."
This small business, which manufactures through a contract factory in St. Croix Falls, Wis., has hired a San Francisco-based intellectual property law firm to tell Alibaba, eBay and Amazon to better police their websites.
Only Amazon is working with the company, said Jeff Rosenfeld, Fleck's attorney. Makin Bacon notifies Amazon when it spots an impostor firm and Amazon checks to assure that the impostor is posing as Makin Bacon through its company-identification system.
"Amazon has a system that links an identifying number that refers to a specific product on Amazon," said Rosenfeld, which allows Amazon to kick off the impostor product.