No orders to send, trademarks exposed, stores removed from shelves, sellers: Life is so hard...

As we all know , the global economy has been in recession since the beginning of this year , and the consumer market has also shown unprecedented negativity .

A large number of sellers have been suffering from the low order volume for a long time . They said that they would start preparing for the peak season in July in previous years , but this year they are still clearing out their past inventory until October . Their dream of the European and American holiday peak season in the second half of the year has been shattered .

At this time of " no orders " , sellers said : just survive . But the reality is often worse than the reality . Many sellers have to face the dilemma of trademark explosion and store closure in this sales winter ...

"I spent so much money on brand promotion in the United States, but now my trademark is gone . It's all in vain! " This is the lament of a seller who was deeply harmed by the trademark explosion .

In September this year , the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an Order to Show Cause, requiring a company engaged in US trademark agency business to provide reasonable explanations and explanations, otherwise more than 13,000+ trademarks it represented and submitted would be invalidated .

This is not the first time such an incident has occurred. At the end of 2021 and in August this year, the USPTO launched investigations against Huanyee and Haiyi, and tens of thousands of trademarks applied for by these agencies were at risk of invalidation. After that, Amazon closed some of the stores involved on the grounds of trademark fraud .

But for those sellers , this is so unfair , they spent money but their stores were still closed . So , can the problem of sellers ' trademarks being invalidated due to illegal applications submitted by agencies be solved ?

The answer is yes. A store that was innocently shut down for suspected trademark fraud has been reopened with the help of Xiaofei.com with Amazon’s permission.

Without professional qualifications , the risk of trademark failure increases

In August 2019, the USPTO issued new regulations that all trademark applications from foreign countries must be represented by US licensed attorneys, and a series of policies such as attorney identity verification were introduced to investigate agents who tried to circumvent in various ways. The essence of the new regulations is to emphasize that US trademark applications are legal practices and require USPTO-approved US attorneys to represent and participate in the entire process. Chinese intellectual property agents are not signatories recognized by the USPTO and cannot act on behalf of others.

Information on the USPTO website regarding the requirement for foreign applicants to register trademarks through a US attorney

The specific violations of the agencies involved in the recent "explosion" of trademarks are manifested in many aspects, but the core problem is that they do not have a US lawyer's license and use the "rental qualification" method to provide sellers with US trademark registration legal services. The US Patent and Trademark Office even posted the agency's emails contacting US lawyers, pointing out that it tried to circumvent the regulations that it must be represented by US lawyers by "borrowing" lawyer's licenses and forging proof of use.

The difficulty of cross-border e-commerce operations lies in the fact that the regulations and processes of different countries and platforms are not the same. The knowledge and ability reserves required for cross-border operations, including from market to law , from transportation to taxation , are far beyond the capabilities of ordinary small and medium-sized enterprises. US trademark law is an area that domestic cross-border e-commerce sellers find difficult to handle on their own, so the professional qualifications and professional ethics of the agency that provides such services are very critical.

Facing the trademark crisis, what should cross-border sellers do?

It should be made clear that the investigation and order of the USPTO are mainly aimed at some domestic service providers who do not have a US business license, not at e-commerce sellers. For US trademark holders who are in the application process or have been approved, there is still an opportunity to file an appeal or reply to the Trademark Office through a licensed US attorney.

The US trademark adopts the principle of first to use. Its validity does not rely entirely on registration, but more on use , including various commercial transactions and marketing activities in the United States and other parts of the world. From an e-commerce perspective, the best protection is to continue to use these trademarks to operate businesses in the United States and collect sufficient evidence to prove it.

At the same time, the registered trademarks are still valid. Even if the trademark registration is finally ruled invalid by the USPTO, the seller's trademark is still protected by US law and cannot be easily infringed by others. The USPTO will also give the trademark owner some time to contact a suitable US lawyer, and the seller can provide evidence of trademark use and request the USPTO to review. The key to whether the trademark can be re-validated , or even whether the Amazon store can be restarted, lies in whether the seller can provide a solid " first use date " and " continuous use " evidence.

Amazon Store Closure : How Sellers Should Respond

Amazon has long been a "vortex" of intellectual property disputes, with disputes between sellers ranging from counterfeits, infringements to malicious complaints and follow-up sales. Since Amazon established the Brand Registry in 2015, in order to avoid competitors' preemptive registration, Chinese cross-border sellers have rushed to enter the Amazon Brand Registry, and even used some of the fastest and cheapest ways to enter, including using false certificates to apply for trademarks. Amazon often adopts the attitude of " better to kill ten thousand by mistake than to let one go " for Chinese sellers . After the trademark agency went bankrupt, Amazon did take measures such as closing down the stores of the trademark involved and removing the products from the shelves to reduce the risks of the platform itself.

In this case, it is more reasonable to register a new trademark through a reliable American lawyer and cancel the trademark that may be deemed fraudulent. Amazon sellers can take the initiative to apply to cancel the old trademark registration before the USPTO ruling is officially issued, and re-register a new trademark with a consistent appearance. In this way, the store and all product packaging can be kept.

Sellers who need to re-register their US trademarks should seek out a US licensed attorney with verified identity for consultation and application. Do not blindly pursue low prices, as this may be a "rented" or "borrowed" license , and do not "take shortcuts" by forging traces and evidence of trademark use. Since US lawyers are regulated by each state, when you contact a lawyer, you can ask the other party to show their lawyer's practice certificate (Bar number), and use this certificate to confirm their practice qualifications with the state's Bar Association .

Strict review , sellers need to be more cautious

According to statistics, since 2019, the USPTO has issued more than 600 sanctions documents, of which more than three-quarters are against Chinese companies . This also means that the US review environment will be more stringent in the future , and the investigation of various US standard service providers in China will become a long-term task. Even if agencies without US lawyer qualifications have not yet been exposed, the risk is extremely high .

In the long run, Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers need to pay more attention to compliance, whether it is to revoke the US standard that has been breached or to apply for a new US standard . Only by choosing reliable professional platforms and lawyers can the compliance and effectiveness of overseas operations be ensured. Sellers should remember that when consulting or applying for US standards through any company , they should first ask the other party to show their US lawyer's license.

Professional and low-cost , Xiaofei.com helps sellers operate in compliance

Flatfee.cn is a global operational compliance platform founded by professionals with many years of global business operation experience. It is headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA. It is committed to providing customers with simple, practical and low-cost compliance solutions to assist small and medium-sized enterprises in achieving global expansion.

Flat fee.cn was officially launched in China in September this year, and has deployed a Chinese-speaking American lawyer team in China. Domestic cross-border sellers can consult service personnel and experts in Chinese, and submit and receive all information and documents in Chinese. Flat fee.cn implements a unified charging and practice standard, and conducts background checks on professional lawyers on the platform in advance to ensure compliance and effectiveness.

Flatfee.cn provides a solution to the US standard explosion

If your trademark encounters similar difficulties, or you have any questions about overseas operations, you can contact Xiaofei.com to discuss with you .

Special Offers:

Now scan the QR code above to add the Flatfee customer service corporate WeChat account or contact Flatfee via email [email protected] to get a coupon worth 100 yuan , which can be used for trademark registration services . The discount can only be received and used from October 27 , 2022 to November 27 , 2022. Do n’t miss the opportunity !

For more promotional activities, please continue to pay attention to Xiaofei.com’s official account ( FlatFee) . Click the end of the article to read the original text and go directly to Xiaofei.com .

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