[NeedMoreTea]

You don't need a patent to protect a design. There's trademark, copyright and design protections, not just patents.

So maybe Anker are uniquely incompetent in selecting suppliers. Not specifying in the contract with factories not to copy whatever widget they produce for Anker, not registering any of their designs. Yet aside from a) products within the same group ostensibly from different brands and b) same idea but clearly made by someone else, few other companies seem affected. They'll have a few products counterfeited. Not most. It's the sort of thing that might encourage you to be very careful on third, fourth and subsequent products.

I suppose it makes a case to avoid Anker and the identical copies, as clearly inept. Few other companies appear to be quite so afflicted. I'm not convinced it's the answer though. Outside the purely generic: white T shirts, tungsten light bulbs and such, you see very few precisely identical products.

[ikeboy]

You said they were not copying the brand, so it's not trademark infringement nor counterfeit.

You keep using the word counterfeit when it does not apply. Copyright is also not applicable unless there's a work of art printed on the product (like cell phone cases).

Most brands making commodity products don't get protection for the design, because the design isn't that unique. Search for "fast chargers for Samsung" and you'll see tons of chargers identical to the Samsung charger except with a different name. Same for Apple.

Examples:

https://www.amazon.com/Pantom-Adaptive-Charging-Compatible-S...

https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Charging-Charger-Compatible-...

https://www.amazon.com/Panmy-Foldable-Portable-Charging-Comp...

https://www.amazon.com/ByCallMax-Adapter-Original-Certified-...

[NeedMoreTea]

There are well known, widely applied design protections that are not patents.

Here's the EU's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design_rights_in_th...

Which protects "the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation". It applies if they are novel and/or if they have unique character.

[ikeboy]

The equivalent in the US is a design patent.