Apple's Inadequate Response to App Store Trademark Fraud

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In the last nine months, my company's brand has been the subject of impersonation attacks. Several unknown developers have published apps in the App Store using our trademarked brand name and logo. We frequently get emails from consumers who have been scammed out of subscription revenue for a barely-functional copycat:<br>Hi, I purchased Kapwing Pro via the iOS app, but I’d like to use my Pro plan on Kapwing.com as well. Could you please link my Pro purchase to my email? - Fraud victim, Oct 16, 2025<br>Yet despite nearly daily emails to the developer involved and Apple's content moderation team, Apple has not taken action to remove these impersonating app from the App Store. They still show up in the App Store and on Search if you search for our brand name.<br>This attack cost consumers thousands of dollars and tarnished our reputation. In the era of AI, more and more businesses are suffering from brand impersonation tactics. In this article, I call on Apple to strengthen their policies and content moderation technologies to remove brand copycats from the iOS App Store.<br>Kapwing does not at this time have a mobile app. We do have a registered trademark on the mark "Kapwing" and the logo in the context of video editing and video generation.<br>Reporting Trademark Infringement: Why are there so many fake apps with our brand name?<br>We originally noticed the lookalike app when people started writing emails to our support team about the Kapwing iOS app subscription they had purchased. Since we don't have an iOS app – Kapwing works on mobile and desktop web – our support agents searched for and found the fake app, listed by an unknown developer, in the App Store.<br>We noticed and reported the impersonating app in late October. We included these user tickets, evidencing brand confusion, in the complaint, in addition to our trademark registration details and evidence of infringement from the listing.<br>For this fraudulent app and others, employees on our team have filed dozens of takedown requests with Apple. We have flagged the apps through each of the channels, as it is not clear which path will lead to a resolution. Each time, Apple has responded in the same way: with an email notifying the developer of our claim, with us cc'ed, asking us to resolve the issue. See next section...<br>These impersonations pop up in the app store so frequently that we have a Notion page about how to file takedown requests. I'm surprised that we even need to file these takedown requests, given that a cursory logo and name search, crosschecked with the developer name, would reveal the impersonation. Kapwing, Inc. has an active Apple Developer account, so Apple knows us, the developers who own the corporation and brand domain "Kapwing.com."<br>Apple's Insufficient Response to Trademark Infringement<br>Since researching Apple's takedown processes, I have learned that "asking nicely" is Apple's go-to policy when it comes to handling trademark impersonation in the App Store. They include us and a developer on the email thread, where we've included all of the details about our active trademark registration, ending with this:<br>We look forward to receiving written assurance that your application does not infringe Claimant's rights, or that the parties are taking steps to promptly resolve the matter. Please keep us apprised of your progress.<br>In other words, they ask a fraudulent developer to provide "written assurance" that they're not infringing on an active trademark and to "keep us apprised."<br>We follow up on these emails threads every day or every other day. Yet Apple never responds or takes action.<br>This is indeed their official policy. For App Store Trademark infringement cases, Apple says "in most cases, we will contact the provider of the disputed app(s) regarding your claim and ask that they work with you directly to resolve the issue." In other words, Apple relies on malignant bad actors to take down and change apps through good will.<br>Apple’s EU DSA transparency report from February 2025 said that they only "took action" on 16% of takedown notices, although most of the notices in the report allege violations of intellectual property rights.<br>Even if the developer decides to take down or rename the app, the app is still listed in Google Search. Apple should de-index apps which are found to violate its policies.<br>A listing for a fake copycat app which still appears on Google Search although the app no longer existsFor a brand notorious for taking action against its brand copycats, this passivity is stunning.<br>Failing to Block Repeat Offenders<br>Once, the same developer published two different video editing apps with the name "Kapwing" in the title a few months apart. When we initially filed the complaint in October 2025 against the first copycat, the developer mostly ignored our notices and the emails from Apple. Finally, 3 months after our first complaint, the developer took down the...