Luxury retailer Chanel Inc. recently filed a “cyber-piracy” lawsuit against 399 websites, charging them with infringement on it’s trademark and selling counterfeit Chanel items, on the Internet.

The counterfeit items infringed upon include; handbags, shoes, wallets, jewelry, scarfs, sunglasses and clothing bearing the Chanel name.

The suit claims that the websites, specifically, use SEO strategies, using keywords that will more than likely show up in search engines like Google and Yahoo.

The defendants are using the Chanel name to make their site appear to be more relevant, to their prospective buyers, and Chanel is asking the court to enter a injunction against the defendants.

The complaint takes the infringement act to an entirely different level, far beyond  the battle of, merely, preventing street corner knock-offs from doing the same.

The order seeks preventive methods that will not only stop the defendants from counterfeiting, but it will also disable and seize the website names, all together.

Lead attorney for Chanel, Steve Gaffigan of Ft. Lauderdale, Fl is also the lead lawyer in similar cases in federal court involving luxury retailers Tiffany and Louis Vuitton.

The Tiffany lawsuit targets 223 unnamed websites, including several  that are also named in the Chanel case. Unspecified damages were identified.