Infringement warning! Another common word has been trademarked, and a large number of links have been removed

The Spring Festival holiday is approaching, and workers who have finished a busy year are looking forward to having a happy Spring Festival. However, for cross-border workers, many people still have to worry about the stores they manage even on vacation, because there are too many pitfalls in cross-border e-commerce, and if you are not careful, it will cause major losses. For example, infringement is the biggest risk.

In the risk of infringement, every time a common word is registered as a trademark, it will cause a lot of damage, and sellers are miserable. Recently, a seller revealed that a new common word has been registered as a trademark. Now many seller links have been removed. Sellers need to be vigilant and deal with it as soon as possible if this word is involved.

"one" was registered as a trademark, and a large number of seller links were removed

Recently, an Amazon seller posted that he suddenly received a performance notification showing that more than a dozen of his product links had been removed, and the number was still increasing. The reason for the links becoming disabled was the abuse of the trademark "one".

After consulting customer service, the other party also made it clear that it was because of the word "one", and all details containing the word "one" were considered infringement, such as one of xxxx.

"One" is obviously a common word and is often used in sellers' links. Therefore, many people have encountered similar situations as the sellers above. A large number of sellers have reported that they have received the same emails or performance warnings, and their links have been removed.

At present, sellers in the UK, US, Japan and Canada have said that their links have been removed, especially in Japan, where many sellers have had their links removed because of the infringing word. Some sellers reported that "one" was registered as a trademark in Japan a long time ago, and the trademarks were registered in three categories: 09, 15 and 28.

However, not all sellers whose links contain "one" were affected. One industrial seller said that his three sites in the UK, the US, and Canada were affected. Another swimwear seller said that he had a link that also used this word, but the link was still intact.

Some people speculated that whether it was affected might be related to the category registered by "one".

However, no matter what the reason is, the key for sellers is to quickly restore sales. Now sellers mainly deal with it by directly deleting "one" or replacing "one" with "1", "a" or "an". Some sellers said that after deleting the infringing words, the performance can be cleared and the link will be restored quickly.

Although deletion is direct and effective, "one" is a commonly used word and there are so many of them that it takes a lot of time for sellers to delete them. It is also very troublesome when encountering the situation where "one" is used as a link word.

Therefore, many sellers think that registering common words as trademarks is too outrageous. Some even said angrily: "Why don't you register all 26 English letters? You won't even miss this one."

In fact, in the cross-border e-commerce industry, it is not uncommon for common words to be registered as trademarks. As we all know, Amazon has always been strict in dealing with infringements, so every time this happens, sellers have to suffer a wave of damage.

Common words are frequently registered as trademarks. Sellers: “Is this a waste of time?”

In recent years, many sellers have been cheated by common words registered as trademarks. The sellers who have been cheated have their links removed and their sales affected. In serious cases, their account funds are frozen and they need to pay huge compensation to settle. Today, Yien will summarize and sort out some common words that have been registered as trademarks to prevent sellers from stepping on the landmine again.

1. 100%

Can you believe that a common word like percentage has been registered as a trademark? A few months ago, a seller discovered that "100%" was successfully registered as a word trademark in the United States by a company in Class 25, with protection covering 11 categories including caps, gloves, hats, jackets, jerseys, shirts, shorts, socks, underwear, sweatshirts, and T-shirts.

Moreover, the company started to register "100%" as a trademark as early as 2007. After years of continuous application, it now has more than 200 trademarks, mainly "100%" graphic trademarks, covering 9, 12, 25, 28 and other categories, covering North America, the European Union, Oceania, etc. In the United States, it has "100%" word trademarks in 9 and 25 categories.

It is extremely risky for sellers to have 100% registered as a trademark because it has always been used in product descriptions to describe the quality of a product, such as 100% cotton.

2. HULA HOOP

" HULA HOOP " is a common keyword, but it has caused great suffering to sellers. Hundreds of stores have been sued, and their account funds have been frozen. One seller revealed that he had to pay up to $100,000 in compensation in order to seek a settlement.

According to the USPTO, most of the trademarks related to " HULA HOOP " are already in a "dead" state, and the valid trademarks are held by the owner Wham-O Holding. As early as 1958, Wham-O applied to register "HULA-HOOP" as a trademark.

In recent years, Wham-O has often initiated trademark lawsuits for " HULA HOOP ". At the end of 2022, a group of sellers said they were sued. The probability of winning the cases initiated by Wham-O is extremely high, and most cases will be settled out of court, but the probability of the defendant winning is "0", so sellers must be cautious.

3. happy birthday

Many sellers are also speechless about " Happy Birthday " being registered as a trademark. Although no sellers have reported that their links have been removed due to infringement of this common word, the USPTO shows that someone has indeed submitted an application to register " Happy Birthday " as a trademark in 2019, classified into four categories: 22, 23, 38, and 05.

However, some sellers said that even if the trademark is successfully registered, because of the wide range of use, the right holder will declare in the registration statement that he or she will give up the right to protect the word. Because of the wide range of use, such words will basically be rejected when they are applied for. If the application is approved, it means that the right has been given up, so others can still use it.

4. Tetris

Many people are familiar with " Tetris " , which carries the childhood memories of many people. However, since it became a lawsuit, I believe that the childhood memories of many sellers will be overshadowed.

In early 2022, " Tetris " was represented by David Gulbransen Law Firm, and a large number of sellers were sued. As early as 1990, the word had been registered as a word trademark by the right holder Tetris Holding, LLC (Tetris Holding Limited Liability Company), covering eight major categories: 9, 11, 16, 25, 28, 35, 38, and 41.

In addition to Tetris Holdings LLC, " Tetris " was also applied for a word trademark by a Shenzhen company in August 2021 .

Although this word is the name of a game, it is very easy for sellers to use it as a common word for ordinary products. If you search on the platform, you can find that this word often appears in the titles of products.

5. Polo

We are all familiar with the word " POLO ". The often mentioned POLO shirt comes from this word. POLO shirt has become a general term for "stand - up collar, short front and long back T-shirt", so clothing sellers often use it as a general term.

The rights holder of this word often initiates infringement lawsuits, so sellers should also be cautious about this.

In summary, we often say that infringement is no small matter. Even if the seller has no subjective intention to infringe, he cannot prevent such unexpected disasters. Therefore, sellers must pay attention to avoiding common words that have been used in cases before.

Trademark Infringement