Listings were removed in batches! A large number of Amazon sellers were forced to pay

Where there is profit, there is the world!

Cross-border e-commerce is a place where interests converge, and all kinds of "intrigues" are common. The Amazon platform is the hardest hit by all kinds of "shady operations".

Recently, a large number of sellers reported that their trademarks were accurately registered, and then the party whose trademarks were registered began to make malicious complaints. Faced with high-priced extortion and threat of complaints, many of the sellers who were deceived had to compromise and buy the trademarks at high prices.

It has been observed that "trademark squatting" has formed an industrial belt. There is even a professional TRO team that conducts special "interception" resource sharing, mainly to maliciously squat on Amazon sellers and then claim compensation.

A large number of trademarks have been registered! More and more Amazon sellers have been affected

Recently, Amazon seller Xiao Zhang encountered the "darkness before the peak season". Due to the malicious registration of European trademarks, all the store listings were removed from the shelves. He had no choice but to find a lawyer to file an invalidation application for the other party's trademark. Although the success rate is very high in the end, the cycle is too long. By then, even if the listings are put back on the shelves, the store will suffer huge losses.

Seller Xiao Li also said that he encountered a similar problem. At first, the brand only registered one category, and then the brand expanded to other categories to sell products, but the brand forgot to extend the registered category. Sellers in the same industry seized this loophole, registered the brand first, and then complained to him. At present, not only the products have been removed from the shelves, but also the account status is in danger and faces the risk of suspension.

In fact, this is not an isolated case. Many sellers have encountered the situation of "trademarks being preemptively registered and links being removed from the shelves". After the other party preemptively registers the trademark, the purpose is not just to complain about the seller's link, but to blackmail the seller, hoping that the victim will spend a large amount of money to buy back the trademark. Especially since this year, there have been more and more similar cases:

A company in Fujian registered a British trademark and complained about all links to British stores.

I had already registered three types of American and European standards, but the British standard with the same name was registered by the other party, and the other party asked for 6,500 pounds.

British trademark A was being sold normally , but the other party registered product A as a German trademark and then filed a complaint, demanding $200,000 .

I missed Australia when registering the trademark, and then someone else registered it. Now I am contacting the other party to buy the trademark .

I had the same experience. The squatter registered more than a dozen trademarks and asked for tens of thousands of pounds . It was really annoying.

There is also domain name squatting, where someone’s brand name is snatched away and the .com domain name is registered, and then the other party complains that the product is infringing.

There are now companies that specialize in this kind of thing , and we were extorted tens of thousands of dollars before .

…

According to sellers’ feedback, there are many problems with malicious trademark and domain name squatting, which can be roughly divided into the following categories:

1. Seller A only registered a Class 28 trademark , and later sold products in Class 16. Then seller B registered a Class 16 trademark, and then seller B complained to seller A about brand infringement .

2. Seller A successfully registered the US trademark, the link was synchronized to the European site, and the UK trademark was registered by seller B   Then complain about infringement.

3. Seller A has registered an EU trademark and its products are sold normally in Europe, including the UK. However, Seller B has registered a UK trademark and complained that Seller A infringed the trademark.
4. Seller A sells private model products and owns appearance patents. Seller B complains about infringement based on other appearance patents, and Amazon deletes the link to Seller A's products.

5. Seller A has a brand. Seller B registers a domain name com with the same trademark as A, and then puts the same link as seller A's Amazon platform on an independent website, and complains about copyright infringement through Amazon.

Beware! Amazon TRO gangs are ambushing sellers in batches to make malicious claims

It is worth noting that the "trademark" registration has now formed a complete industrial chain. Relevant fraud teams will discuss how to register trademarks, and even specially develop a "strategy for laying eggs by intercepting and laying eggs". Gangs will share experiences with each other, focus on hot-selling listings, and ambush sellers and claim compensation after maliciously registering patents.

According to the exposed "Operation of Cutting and Laying Eggs Strategy Diagram", the relevant gangs will first screen the industry and category, browse products on the front desk of Amazon and other channels, and then decide on the products they want to register trademarks for. Generally speaking, products with high sales or products with a large number of sales are the targets. After that, professionals will analyze and intercept products through a series of professional operations such as patent registration, targeted preliminary screening, effectiveness reinforcement, cutting and strong screening, rough design, cooperation with patent institutions, modeling and line drawing, and application for expedited certification, so as to achieve the purpose of malicious claims.

It can be seen that the entire preemptive registration process is very standardized and professional. These fraud gangs can even cooperate with patent agencies and apply for expedited certification. In addition, the fraud gangs have a certain understanding of cross-border sellers and know which products to complain about in order to extort more money.

It is understood that some gangs successfully claimed millions of dollars in malicious compensation from domestic sellers with the help of "shop interception" operations.

Malicious extortion! The seller had to "settle" at a high price

After encountering trademark squatting, sellers often use these three methods: 1. Complain to the Amazon platform and provide invoices, link creation time, order date, purchase records and other information; 2. Apply to the Trademark Office to invalidate the other party’s trademark; 3. Have to contact the other party to purchase the trademark.

The first method is that after the seller's trademark is preemptively registered, the product is complained about. The prerequisite for a successful appeal is brand authorization. When appealing, it is necessary to clarify: the other party's trademark is suspected of being registered in bad faith. For example, if you have registered a similar trademark with the same name in the United States and have generated sales records, but the other party has registered the same trademark in the United Kingdom and has no sales records, it is very likely that the complaint is made in bad faith.

The second method is to apply to the Trademark Office to invalidate the other party's trademark, also on the grounds that the other party is suspected of malicious extortion. However, this method cannot be done by the seller alone , and it is necessary to contact an intellectual property lawyer, which is expensive . A seller who was deceived said that the total cost is 100,000 yuan, and the operation period is relatively long, which may take a year.

The third method is to buy the preemptively registered trademark. It is understood that many sellers who were deceived have failed to appeal to Amazon, but the period of invalidating the other party's trademark is too long, and they can't wait, so they often have no choice but to accept the defeat and buy the trademark maliciously registered by the other party at a high price. "The British trademark was preemptively registered, and I finally spent 35,000 to buy it back", "5,800 pounds reached a settlement", "I bargained for a long time, and finally transferred more than 50,000 yuan to the gangsters"...

Sellers can also crack down on the phenomenon of malicious domain name squatting. The method is to prepare the trademark and file a complaint to the domain name platform, so that the registered domain name will be directly deleted.

On the Amazon platform, there are countless malicious competitions such as trademark squatting and domain name squatting, which requires sellers to detect and avoid related risks in a timely manner! For example, when selling products on the European site, try to register the British trademark and the EU trademark together, and register the domain name with the same trademark name at the same time, just in case of emergency.

Amazon Platform