Hundreds of thousands of shipments were affected, the seller’s trademark was registered, and he was also issued a reimbursement warning?

I have seen a seller share his ups and downs on Amazon in a short video before. He said that Amazon sellers chasing the trend will only be ripped off. To really succeed, you still need to have your own brand. I agree with him. However, this recent case tells me that more important than brand is brand protection awareness.

Here’s what happened: Recently, a seller reported that he received an FBA reimbursement warning from Amazon. The email showed that because some of the seller’s FBA inventory was determined to be eligible for reimbursement, a reimbursement application was issued to him. The seller was confused: “Does this mean that my goods are lost?”

It was an experienced old seller who stood up and said that this seller might have been identified by Amazon as suspected of being involved in the sale of counterfeit products or other illegal goods, so Amazon decided to abandon and destroy his inventory.

"This is too unreasonable!" The seller immediately exploded, saying that he had always been conducting legal transactions and never dared to cross the line, let alone deal in fakes!

"I want to curse. I was tricked by someone who preemptively registered my trademark . Now I am filing a complaint. I have hundreds of thousands of goods ... All the goods that can be moved have been moved. There are still many in reserve, but they cannot be sold..." The seller is almost crying: "I really did not participate in counterfeiting!"

In fact, trademark squatting is nothing new in the circle. Sellers who have already gained a certain degree of popularity and sellers located in export-oriented industrial clusters are the focus of attention of "black organizations".

Last year, many sellers reported that a large number of Amazon women's clothing trademarks were collectively registered in Canada by the same company. Nearly 60 trademarks were affected, and many Amazon women's clothing sellers were among them.

After a trademark is preemptively registered, if the seller continues to use the registered trademark, he or she is likely to face lawsuits for trademark infringement, resulting in listing closures, inventory backlogs, and even high compensation payments. However, if the seller gives up the preemptively registered trademark, it will be difficult to swallow this, and it also means that the seller will have to give up the market of the country of destination of the preemptively registered trademark.

Therefore, we would like to remind all sellers that trademarks have strict geographical restrictions and are only protected in the place of registration. In addition, countries generally follow the principle of "first-to-file", which creates opportunities for malicious registrants. Therefore, all sellers must strengthen their awareness of brand layout. It is best to choose several important Amazon sites for layout first, obtain trademark exclusive rights, and avoid malicious trademark registration .

If you are unlucky enough to encounter a trademark squatting, you can file an objection to the Trademark Office during the preliminary announcement period and apply for registration immediately . If the objection is successful, the trademark can be successfully registered and you can avoid being squatted for the second time.

If the trademark has been preemptively registered, the seller must immediately submit his own trademark application in the country where the trademark has been preemptively registered, collect evidence of prior use of his own trademark as soon as possible, and then file objections, invalidations, cancellations and other "clearance" actions against the preemptively registered trademark .

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