The ranking of hot search terms has risen by more than 85,000. Some sellers of such hot products have been sued.

"Is there anyone worse off than me? I became a defendant at home during the Chinese New Year."

On the social media platform, Yien.com learned that the seller who posted the message said that during the Spring Festival, his store suddenly received a TRO email. It turned out that his store’s products were the subject of an infringement case filed by a new patent holder.

Obviously, this seller had a difficult year, and after the beginning of the new year, another group of sellers became defendants.

The hot search ranking has increased by more than 80,000. The product is very popular, but it infringes on copyright.

As March begins , a batch of summer products are being prepared and put on the shelves, and the search popularity of the products is also increasing.

Taking the swimsuit category as an example, Een.com found that the search popularity of “swimsuit” on Amazon’s US site is soaring, and the search rankings of most segmented products are in the tens of thousands.

Among 426 different types of swimsuit products, the hot search rankings of some products soared by more than 40,000 compared with the previous week, and some even soared to 85,325 .

The market for summer products is coming, and sellers of seasonal products are gearing up to make a big splash. However, before they officially enter the battlefield, they encounter infringement incidents, and they may "die before they achieve their goal."

Recently, a rights protection case occurred regarding swimsuit products.

Blue Spring Partners once again took legal action for the Fin Fun mermaid tail under its brand . On February 23, the infringement case was formally accepted by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois . The case number is 24-cv-01548 . The law firm representing Blue Spring Partners, LLC is Bsfllp .

It is understood that Blue Spring Partners mainly sells swimming equipment such as mermaid tails, swimming fins, swimsuits, as well as clothes, toys and gifts, most of which contain mermaid elements.

The rights protection this time mainly focuses on copyright , patents and trademarks . The copyright is mainly the mermaid tail, and the plaintiff's brand has nearly 100 mermaid tail copyright information ; in addition, the patent involved in the case US9162110B1 is an invention patent, and the plaintiff also has 4 invention patents and 3 appearance patents ; the trademarks involved are two Fin Fun in different registered categories , namely toys and fitness and clothing, shoes and hats.

With its mermaid appearance and the influence of Disney fairy tales, the mermaid tail designed by Blue Spring Partners is very popular in the summer swimming product market. This product under its Fin Fun swimming products brand has achieved monthly sales of nearly 50,000 units .

In Amazon 's BS list for the " Girls' Novelty Swimwear " category, 36 of the top 50 listings are mermaid tails , accounting for 72% .

However, products involving popular IPs such as fairy tales have a high risk of infringement. On Amazon, there are 5,000 listings of girls' swimwear products on sale, and many of them have tens of thousands of reviews. However, the designs of these products have their own characteristics. If you want to sell well, you must first avoid stepping into the infringement pit.

If we zoom in on the entire swimsuit category, there are 30,000 listings for sale on Amazon, and some of these listings have already achieved monthly sales of more than 1,000 pieces in February, even though it is not yet summer.

Infringements are frequent, and sellers have repeatedly made mistakes since the beginning of the year

It is worth noting that not only swimsuits, but also swimming rings, inflatable swimming pools, etc. are popular infringing products in summer.

In addition to the mermaid tail mentioned above, there have been many product infringement cases in the cross-border circle recently.

1. POPILUSH Shapewear

On February 23, the infringement case filed by POPILUSH, LLC on behalf of YK Law LLP regarding the copyright of the image was officially filed, with the case number 24-cv-01533 .

It can be seen from the plaintiff's company 's official website that its main products are various styles of women's shapewear and tights , including tight skirts, tight suits and shapewear, etc. The prices of the products are not low, and most listings are priced between US$450 and US$700.

However, the product has a high rate of positive reviews. For a certain product, although the number of reviews is only 1,700+, most of them are rated 5 stars. This time, POPILUSH mainly protects the copyright of 100 pictures of body-shaping long skirts and belly-controlling jumpsuits .

On Amazon, there are 6,000 listings for “shapewear”. For one listing alone, it has received 303.65 million reviews since it was put on the shelves, and last month it achieved monthly sales of more than 10,000 pieces .

2. HULA-HOOP

As a common sports and fitness equipment, the hula hoop has a very obvious effect on waist and abdomen training . It is also a popular product on the market. However, HULA-HOOP was registered as a trademark a long time ago.

As a product name, HULA-HOOP's registration as a trademark sparked heated discussions among cross-border sellers, who immediately modified their listings overnight for fear of infringement. But recently, someone fell into the trap again.

On February 22, the lawsuit filed by HULA-HOOP , a brand under Wham-O Holding , for trademark infringement was officially filed. The law firm represented by it is Keith , which is familiar to cross-border sellers. The case number is 24-cv-01468 .

On Amazon, there are 554 listings for hula hoops, of which 17,717 have reviews, and more than 2,000 units were sold in February.

3. FRISBEE

Like the hula hoop mentioned above, this is also a brand of Wham-O Holding . In Europe and the United States, the Frisbee sport has always been popular, and in recent years this product has continued to have extremely high market demand. Most cross-border sellers want to seize this wave of opportunities, but have failed due to copyright issues.

Over the years, FRISBEE has been used by many sellers as a separate product name , but it has also repeatedly encountered infringement issues. Last year alone, 5,000 Temu sellers suffered a major setback from this product, and some sellers even had millions of dollars of funds frozen as a result.

Because Wham-O Holding has already registered the trademark for FRISBEE , on February 22 this year, the trademark owner commissioned Keith Law Firm to initiate rights protection again, which has been accepted by the court with the case number 24-cv-01473.

4. Dinosaur plush toys

On January 26, the court formally accepted the case filed by a Yiwu seller regarding the U.S. design patent for its dinosaur plush toys. The entrusted law firm was Ktenas Law LLC , and the case number was 24-cv-00683 .

It is understood that the product involved in the case is a weighted dinosaur plush toy with high-quality weighted beads at the bottom. When hugging it, you can feel the weight of the plush toy and release stress or negative emotions. Its US appearance patent officially took effect on March 21, 2023 .

On Amazon, there are at least 2,000 listings selling stuffed dinosaur toys, with one listing selling more than 3,000 units in February alone.

In addition to the above, infringement cases have recently been filed against products such as wooden heart-shaped candlesticks (Case No. 24-cv-01798 ), multi-claw hooks (Case No. 24-cv-01841 ), and waist belts ( Case No. 24-cv-01460 ).

In addition, well-known brands such as Philips and SUPREME are initiating trademark infringement cases: Philips ( two consecutive cases ) involves 15 trademarks , SUPREME involves 19 trademarks , and the law firm representing both is GBC.

In conclusion:

Infringement has a high incidence rate no matter when and where it occurs.

According to incomplete statistics, there were nearly 180 infringement cases in the United States in January this year alone , of which GBC initiated 64 cases and Keith initiated 65 cases. In February, the number dropped to about 100 , but the number is still not low, with an average of 3 infringement cases a day .

When suffering from no growth in order volume, sellers must do a good job of product patent work and avoid incurring more losses as a result. If TRO occurs, the store may suffer further damage.

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