Meiya's hit product has a problem! The public model product was patented and a large number of sellers were sued

Something happened to Amazon’s popular product!

It is said that fashion is a cycle. This year, a hair accessory item full of childhood memories has re-entered our field of vision and has become popular both at home and abroad. It is also a hot seller on Amazon, and many sellers are making a lot of money. It is the hair clip.

But recently this public model product ran into trouble. A seller successfully applied for a patent for the appearance and complained about infringement by other sellers.

The popular grabber has been patented, and the seller's link has been removed from the shelves due to complaints

Many people are confused about the word "grab clip", let alone the product, but you must be familiar with the "shark clip". Yes, it is the kind of clip that opens its "big mouth" to fix your hair when you close your hand.

It is reported that hair claws are the most popular product on Amazon this year. Amazon has even created a category called "Hair Claws". Many sellers who have entered this category have made some money, even if they have not made any money. But what is unexpected is that when everyone is selling well, they are suddenly sued for infringement of appearance.

It is understood that the complainant (patent holder) is also a seller in this category and has successfully applied for a design patent for the "grab clip" in the U.S. From the patent documents provided by the whistleblower, it can be seen that the seller filed the application on August 31, 2020, which coincides with the time when the grab clip became popular.

The whistleblower said that the patent owner's largest link is the most profitable link this year. " This year's monthly sales have been at least 30,000 orders, with each order priced at $13.99 (four), and the profit per order is half and half, with a monthly profit of more than 1 million yuan. "

He said that the domestic purchase price is 1 yuan per piece , and 4 yuan for 4 pieces, which is definitely a "profiteering link."

It is conceivable that if it drives other competitors out of this category through infringement complaints, the order volume will increase significantly. But things always happen unexpectedly. Just when it was about to enjoy the joy of a good harvest, the above link suddenly turned into a dog.

"He's been fought back! He sued many companies, but he doesn't know which one is targeting him." The whistleblower told the editor that the patent owner is now afraid and has started to change its strategy.

One of its strategies is "authorization." According to the sellers who were affected, their links were initially removed from the shelves. When they contacted the complainant, the other party was very tough, but later they took the initiative to contact them and said they could authorize sales. The price limit table showed that each order could not exceed $13.99, and they would take a commission of 3 yuan for each order.

In fact, authorizing other sellers to sell does not mean that the patent owner has completely compromised. On the contrary, it is possible that the patent owner has won by taking advantage of the situation. According to the above-mentioned seller, there are at least 10,000 orders in this category . If the commission is 3 yuan per order, that would be 30,000 yuan, which is much easier than working hard to make links.

Google and TikTok continue to gain popularity, and foreigners continue to give positive reviews

When you see the hair clip, you may think it is full of 90s style and think that it should be used by mothers to fix their hair when taking a bath. However, it is indeed popular again and has evolved from practicality to decoration. Foreigners love it.

The extent of their love for the product can be seen from the reviews left by the following three sellers on Amazon.

"——I have a lot of long hair. It often takes me 4 hours to go to the hair salon to wash my hair. I usually have to use a huge hair band to barely hold it up. This clip exceeded my expectations. It can not only completely hold my hair, but also curl it.

——It won’t fall off easily, I can wear it for jogging, it’s well made, sturdy and durable, and I like all the colors very much, they can be matched with any color.

- They are amazing, I have long fine hair and it's hard to find clips that don't slip out or dig into my hair, these made all the difference, I even sleep with them on. "

Claws are really hot! Google Trends shows that in the past five years, the popularity of Hair Claw in the United States was flat in the first two years, but since March last year, its popularity has risen sharply. At the same time, the number of searches related to best claw clips for thick hair has soared, and the number of searches for how to put hair in claw clip has also increased by 850%.

According to foreign media reports, videos of grabbing and clipping are also very popular on TikTok, with a large amount of traffic, and many times the videos go viral without celebrities. "As TikTok's beauty content creators have shown, it is also wearable for us mortals," said a foreigner.

Driven by the popularity, sales on 1688 are very hot. Entering "clip" will bring up 50 pages of results , with a wide variety of styles, including acrylic clips, plastic clips, etc. by material, triangle clips, flower clips, etc. by shape, leopard clips, black clips, etc. by pattern and color. The first store on the homepage has a very eye-catching title "Amazon", and the store data shows that it has sold more than 10,000 pieces.

The public model was registered for the appearance patent, and the seller was helpless when the peers "complained with certificates"

There are many public mold products like grabbers that have their appearance patents registered by peers.

A seller recently asked: "My peer registered the appearance patent for the public model product of the UK site in September. I have some links created in April. Will I be complained if I use the old links to promote this product now?"

Earlier this year, another seller also said: "My peer registered a European public model product appearance patent in 2018. Amazon first sold it in 2017. Our product was launched in 2020 , but it has now been removed from the shelves due to complaints . Is there any way to successfully appeal? "

It is not uncommon for sellers to preemptively register the appearance patents of public mold products. A complaint letter from the patent holder will cause the seller's link to be removed from the shelves, and the product will also go from being a hot-selling product to unsalable inventory. Sellers who are "complained with a certificate" by their peers are very helpless, and their help posts can often be seen on industry forums.

By observing these cases, we can find that the EU is the hardest hit area for preemptive registration of design patents for public mold products. Because in the EU, the application for design patent is only subject to formal examination, the probability of authorization is high and the authorization speed is fast. Generally, the certificate can be obtained in about one month, and even in 7 days if it is fast . Therefore, sellers selling in EU countries are very likely to be affected. In other words, in addition to Amazon sellers, sellers in the European site's clipping category should also pay attention.

Once the patent holder has the appearance patent, it is like holding the weak spot of other sellers. Does that mean they have no room for resistance? Actually, that is not the case.

It is reported that the appearance patent of the public model product was preemptively registered, the seller was complained by the patent owner, and the link was removed from the shelves. There are two ways to deal with it:

1. Invalidate the patent. File an objection to the local trademark and patent office and ask the other party to rule that the patent is invalid. But this is a tug-of-war, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and expensive, and often by the time the final result is reached, the product is basically dead.

2. Patent appeal. Prepare the purchase invoice, link creation time, first purchase time screenshot (earlier than the patent registration time, proving that this model has been sold in the market for a long time and is a public model) and other materials to appeal to the platform. However, with this method, the link will still be deleted after the appeal is successful, and it will not be available again in the future.

However, although there are sellers who have succeeded in both methods, the probability is very low, especially the first method, which has invested a lot of time and money, but the results are not satisfactory. Therefore, sellers must pay attention to checking patent websites when selecting products. If there is no patent, apply for a patent yourself. If there is a patent, modify the model yourself.

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