MCoBeauty has built a billion-dollar business by perfecting the art of cosmetic dupes.
Known for replicating viral beauty products, often with near-identical packaging and concepts, MCoBeauty sells at a fraction of the price, undercutting premium brands by 50% or more.
For beauty brands, this raises a crucial question: How do you protect your products from copycats?
The answer lies in trade marks.
How MCoBeauty operates
MCoBeauty doesn’t operate in the shadows—it carefully treads the fine line of legality.
The company’s own lawyer has gone on record explaining that their strategy involves checking which aspects of a competitor’s product are protected by trade marks before launching their versions.
This means that if your brand hasn’t taken the right legal steps, you could be leaving yourself open to imitation.
The legal battles against MCoBeauty
Two cosmetics brands, Tarte and Chemcorp have already taken MCoBeauty to court, each relying on registered trade marks to challenge its product designs.
The cases were settled out of court. While the outcomes of those cases remain confidential, the outcome speaks volumes.
MCoBeauty changed its packaging as a result.
This highlights a critical fact: trade mark protection is one of the only legal tools that can force a dupe brand to back down.
Why many beauty brands are vulnerable
Many cosmetics brands invest heavily in product innovation, packaging design, and marketing—but neglect trade mark protection.
This leaves them with limited legal options when a copycat enters the market. Even large international players, like Dior and Charlotte Tilbury have been vulnerable due to a lack of an effective trade mark strategy in Australia.
Copyright and passing off claims are difficult and expensive to prove.
Trade mark registrations, on the other hand, create clear, enforceable rights.
How to protect your brand from dupes
If you want to defend your brand against MCoBeauty—or any other dupe business—you need to build a proactive trade mark strategy. Here’s how:
1. Factor trade marks into product development
Don’t wait until after launch to think about protection. Trade mark strategy should be part of your product design and development process from day one.
2. Prioritise trade mark registration
If your brand name, logo, or product name isn’t registered as a trade mark, it’s vulnerable.
Registering your trade mark gives you exclusive rights and the legal grounds to challenge copycats.
3. Protect distinctive packaging and product features
Trade mark protection isn’t just for names and logos. If an element of your packaging—like a unique shape, color combination, or design—is distinctive, you may be able to register it as a trade mark.
4. Build a strong trade mark portfolio
The more aspects of your brand and products you protect, the harder it becomes for copycats to replicate your work without legal consequences.
In the cosmetics industry, your brand IS your business. And your trade mark portfolio is a critical business asset.
The future of dupes: more copycats, more legal battles
MCoBeauty’s success is likely to inspire even more brands to enter the dupe industry.
These businesses thrive by carefully navigating legal gray areas, avoiding direct trade mark infringement where possible.
However, brands that strategically use trade marks can make those legal gray areas much smaller.
Your trade mark portfolio is public information. Dupe businesses can easily see how much you've invested into your portfolio - which is a good indicator of how much you're likely to try and enforce it.
If a dupe business risks legal action every time they copy a product, their business model becomes much harder to sustain.
And it's easier for a dupe business to move on to target a brand that hasn't properly protected their rights compared with a business that has a robust trade mark portfolio.
Final thoughts
Trade mark strategy isn’t just about protecting your logo—it’s about securing your competitive edge.
If you’re launching a new beauty product, trade mark protection needs to be a priority.
Because once a dupe hits the market, your best defence is an already established, strong trade mark portfolio.
The key to a strong trade mark portfolio is having a good trade mark strategy baked into your product design and development process.
Want to make sure your brand is protected?
Get in touch to find out how we can help.