BIC Corp. and its New York-based vice president and general counsel, Steve Burkhart, are fired up over alleged knockoff lighters that are being made in China and imported into the U.S.

The French company with a North American headquarters in Shelton, Connecticut has filed a pair of trademark infringement complaints against the alleged counterfeiters and their stateside distributors before the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., and U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. The company has a factory in Connecticut that produces about 1 million lighters a day

BIC general counsel and vice president Steve Burkhart.