Another common word has been represented by a law firm, and some sellers have been frozen!

Infringement issues have always been a perennial topic in the cross-border e-commerce industry, and law firms play an important role in it.

It is difficult to prevent infringement, and many sellers suffer heavy losses every year due to infringement. Common words are suddenly registered as trademarks, and you have done a lot of homework in advance, but you still receive complaints shortly after listing. Your brand is blackmailed after being maliciously registered ... There are pitfalls at every step.

During this process, what sellers fear most is that a certain law firm has become the agent for XX brand.

Tetris trademark protection, sellers should check themselves

The classic game Tetris carries the childhood memories of many people, but now for some sellers, this childhood memory is overshadowed.

Recent news shows that the Tetris trademark is represented by the David Gulbransen law firm, which started litigation on February 7, and some Wish sellers have been frozen.

Tetris means Tetris, which has been registered as a word trademark by the right holder Tetris Holding, LLC in 1990. At the same time, the word trademark covers eight major categories: 9, 11, 16, 25, 28, 35, 38, and 41.

In addition to the word mark, the company has also registered the following graphic marks:

Therefore, if the above text or graphics appear in the title, product, or packaging, it is very likely to cause trademark infringement.

It is worth noting that in addition to Tetris Holdings Co., Ltd., Tetris was also applied for a word trademark by a Shenzhen company in August last year and is still alive.

Tetris is a computer game that was popular all over the world from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. It was invented by Russian Alexey Pajitnov and is the ancestor of falling puzzle games. It is considered one of the most classic games in the world. In the game, players need to control blocks of different shapes to form specific shapes to pass the game.

At present, in addition to games, Tetris Holdings Co., Ltd.'s peripheral products include clothing, mobile phone cases, watches, storage boxes, etc.

Searching for "Tetris" on Amazon yields more than 2,000 results, including game consoles, watches, cups, building blocks, beverages, etc. These products also pose a risk of infringement if they do not have brand authorization.

However, what should be paid more attention to in this matter is that Tetris is very easy to be used by sellers as a common word for ordinary products. Searching on the platform shows that this word often appears in the product titles. I believe that many sellers still remember the tragic situation when the common word Hula Hoop sued for infringement last year, so many people are worried that this nightmare will happen again.

Sellers have suffered enough losses from infringement. At the same time, with the advancement of Amazon's branding, sellers have also begun to consciously register trademarks, but they did not expect that there are deep pitfalls here.

37 trademarks were cancelled, and the agency only paid 24,000 yuan in compensation

At the end of last year, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO) announced on its official website sanctions against a Chinese company - Shenzhen Huanyi Intellectual Property Co., Ltd., invalidating all of the more than 15,000 U.S. trademarks it represented and permanently deleting them from the USPTO database. At the same time, the company, relevant persons in charge and company employees were permanently prohibited from submitting applications to the USPTO on behalf of others.

Its violations include four aspects: false advertising; entering the name of the signatory without authorization; sharing the account with others in violation of the terms of use of the USPTO website; and submitting fictitious US company address information.

A few days ago, a seller found Yien.com and said that he had 37 trademarks on the list. "These trademarks were registered through Huanyi Intellectual Property from 2018 to 2020. Three of them have been certified, but they are also on the revocation list. "

After knowing that he had stepped on a landmine, the seller immediately contacted the above-mentioned company, which offered two solutions: First, if Huanyi Intellectual Property needs to recommend an attorney to resubmit the U.S. trademark registration, the company will no longer charge agency service fees and will assist in submitting the application, or provide trademark application services of equal number in any country free of charge; Second, if Huanyi Intellectual Property does not need to re-apply for registration, the company will compensate 600 yuan per application or 20% of the trademark application fees involved, and the agent will find other agencies to apply for trademark registration on his own.

But the seller was not satisfied with this plan. "We spent 2,400 yuan on each trademark, plus the lawyer's reply fee of more than 7,700 yuan, which adds up to nearly 100,000 yuan. The difference in this compensation plan is too big, and we can't accept it."

Moreover, the seller said that one of these trademarks has already been used. If the cancellation takes effect, there is a risk of trademark infringement caused by preemptive registration. On the other hand, it will lose the protection of the trademark and be easily copied. In addition, it will take nearly a year to re-register the revoked trademark, and there is a risk of preemptive registration at any time during this period.

I thought that by applying for a trademark, my business on the cross-border e-commerce platform would be protected, but I didn't expect that the clothes I spent a lot of money on could be taken off by someone without any warning one day. Now the claim for compensation has encountered difficulties again, and the seller is also very helpless.

However, compared to trademarks, another type of infringement complaint is more of a headache for sellers, and that is patent infringement complaints. Even if sellers do a lot of search and query work before listing their products, it is still easy to be caught because patents are more difficult to search.

USPTO launches new tool to make patent searching easier

Recently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO) launched a new patent public search tool ( https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/), which enables more convenient, remote and powerful full-text searches of all U.S. patents and published patent applications.

Based on the advanced Patent End-to-End (PE2E) search tool used by USPTO examiners to identify prior art , the free, cloud-based platform combines the functionality of four existing search tools scheduled to be retired in September 2022: the Public Examiner’s Automated Search Tool (PubEAST), the Public Web Examiner’s Search Tool (PubWEST), the Patent Full-Text and Image Database (PatFT), and the Patent Application Full-Text and Image Database (AppFT).

The legacy search tools PubEAST and PubWEST have long been accessible only at USPTO office locations , such as the Alexandria headquarters, regional offices, or the Patent and Trademark Resource Center . With the launch of the new tools, remote searches are now available to anyone with internet access. Other benefits include :

Layouts: Multiple layouts with multiple tools to provide more data at the same time;

Highlights: Multi-color highlights that can be viewed in multiple widgets and turned on or off;

Tagging: Ability to tag documents into groups which can be renamed and color coordinated;

Notes: Ability to add notes to images, with the option to include tags, relevant statements and highlights;

Quality: Powerful full-text search of U.S. patents and published applications;

Familiar Usability: Same search syntax as PubEAST and PubWEST.

It is worth noting that in order to help users transition to the new tool, the USPTO has also launched a new patent public search webpage ( https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/static/pages/landing.html), which includes FAQs , training resources and other information. As for the upcoming public training courses, the USPTO also stated that they will be announced on the webpage once they are arranged .

Tetris

US Trademark

Trademark Infringement