Coach, the 75-year-old maker of luxury leather handbags, wallets and belts, sued Trendy Texas, a store on Harwin Drive in Houston, and its owners for allegedly violating the Coach trademark by making and selling counterfeit products, complete with "studied imitations" of the Coach trademark logos and design.

Coach, which is based in New York, filed its lawsuit earlier this week in federal court in Houston after an investigation by Houston police and the indictment of the owners last month on charges of trademark counterfeiting. Police seized 371 items that purportedly carried the Coach trademark, including labels, belts, key chains and sunglasses, according to the lawsuit.

The owners, Mahmood Baig and Mirza Mohammad Dawood Baig, were released on $20,000 bail each. They did not respond to a request for comment. Houston police declined to comment.

Coach has filed similar lawsuits against other vendors in the Harwin area for selling knock-off products.

Like other luxury retailers, Coach has conducted a campaign against counterfeit goods that carry its brand name and trademark.

The company has a web page devoted to educating consumers, including ways to contact the company if customers suspect someone is selling fake merchandise.

Chris Schwegmann, an intellectual property lawyer with Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst in Dallas, said luxury brands go out of their way to prosecute these cases because they want to get the fakes off the street, protect the integrity of their brand, and discourage other retailers from selling counterfeit merchandise.

He pointed to the jeweler Tiffany, which three years ago sued the warehouse club retailer Costco for trademark infringement for selling diamond engagement rings as "Tiffany" rings.

Tiffany was awarded $13.75 million, including punitive damages.

Federal custom officials also have ramped up efforts to find and seize counterfeit products.

Schwegmann recently attended government training sessions on recognizing knock-offs, learning to spot a fake luxury handbag by its visible seams and fake Rolex watches by the herky-jerky movement of the second hand rather than the smooth motion of the real thing.

Then came a surprise: Schwegmann noticed several lawyer friends with "Rolex" watches were actually wearing fakes on their wrists.

"It's like looking at a magic trick," he said. "Once you know how it's done, that's all you see."