The label may say Seven For All Mankind, but the Vernon-based manufacturer of premium jeans is finding that a growing number of legitimate retailers are selling knockoffs of its pricey merchandise.

With its jeans typically costing over $120 a pair, the company has found counterfeit copies being sold at familiar discount stores, including those operated by Loehmann’s Holdings Inc., Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. and Filene’s Basement Corp.

That has prompted Seven For All Mankind LLC, which dominates the premium denim category, to file 19 lawsuits in the last five months against the retailers to cut off sales.

“It is not an old problem, it is a new problem.” said Michael Heimbold, a partner with the law firm Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLC, which represents Seven. “The company is committed to protecting its brand.”

Retailers are used to seeing knockoffs being sold by street vendors and at flea markets where consumers almost expect that the low price means they may not be getting the real deal.

But counterfeits at respected discounters are another matter. It’s an emerging problem for the new wave of premium jean makers, whose retail prices are in the hundreds of dollars yet they are selling an item that can be cheaply manufactured and still be plausibly passed off as the real thing.

“If there is a large margin then it makes sense to counterfeit,” said Rod Berman, chair of the intellectual property department at the Century City office of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro LLP. “A company that sells products with a high profit margin where there is a demand for the product in the low-end market is a candidate for counterfeiting.”

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The full story

is available in the May 16 edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal.