Sellers beware! Another common word has been trademarked

For cross-border sellers, the most important skill to gain a foothold in this industry may not be excellent operational skills or the ability to select products with great insight, but a keen awareness of anti-infringement.

After all, once you are sued for infringement, the entire store may be lost and everything will be burned to ashes, no matter how well it was run before.

As we all know, infringement issues have always been a high-incidence incident in the cross-border circle. If sellers are not careful, they will fall into the trap of appearance infringement and trademark infringement. For word trademarks alone, many words are obviously common and common words, but they have already been registered as patents and copyrights, and sellers have inexplicably stepped on the landmine.

Another common word has been registered as a trademark. Sellers should be careful to avoid it.

Recently, industry insiders noticed that the commonly used words Heatless Hair have been registered as trademarks. These two words are must-write words for some sellers, and the impact they have caused is self-evident.

The trademark registration information shows that the registrant of the trademark is the American company Heatless Hair LLC, and the official website is heatlesshair.com. The registered category is Class 26: hair accessories, namely, claw clips • hair accessories, namely, twisters • hair curlers, non-electric, other than hand implements.

After entering the website based on the information released, it was found that the company mainly sells women's products such as curling irons and hairpins. However, the overall style and decoration of the website look relatively simple, and it seems that the company did not spend too much time on its own website.

It is worth noting that the trademark was registered as early as February 2021, and the registration process took more than two years. This shows that the word Heatless Hair did face considerable obstacles when applying for trademark registration, but in the end the United States Trademark and Patent Office decided to grant it trademark rights.

Some sellers speculated that it might be because they registered the product early, when heat-free curling irons were not popular, and there were probably fewer sellers using this term, which gave him the opportunity to register it as a trademark.

Generally speaking, curling irons are divided into two types: those that require heating and those that do not. At first, most products on the market were heated curling products that required electricity, but as the market developed and consumer preferences changed, heat-free curling irons quickly became popular due to their more convenient and easy-to-use features, and a group of sellers also entered the market.

For sellers who sell such products, they will more or less use the words Heatless Hair when writing listings. The most commonly used one is Heatless Hair Curlers. Many sellers will use this word in product names and product descriptions.

After searching Amazon with the keyword Heatless Hair Curlers, we found that there are still many listings using words such as Heatless Hair in their titles. Some of them are old listings with monthly sales of over 10,000 pieces, and some are even included in the BS list.

Once the trademark holder chooses to take action against these sellers, it may set off another bloody storm in the cross-border circle. Sellers who are at risk of infringement should take action as soon as possible, and don't wait until their accounts are frozen before they regret it.

It is reported that in addition to the text trademark, the brand is also applying for a patent for one of its heat-free curling bands. The patent is still under application. If this patent can be registered, a large number of sellers will be affected.

Common word infringements frequently occur, and a large number of stores suffer

This year, there seem to be more common word infringement incidents than ever before.

In the first half of the year, the hottest topic in Europe and the United States was Barbie dolls, and the pink trend it triggered has remained popular.

Google Trends shows that the search popularity of the keyword "PINK" has been at a high level in the United States and even around the world. On Amazon, the hot search rankings of various types of products with the keyword "PINK" have also been rising in recent days.

Amazon sellers with a keen sense of smell will naturally not miss this wave of traffic. As early as April this year , many sellers said on social platforms that they added pink to the products they sold.

However, it is not known whether these sellers have seen a surge in orders, but the word "PINK" has indeed triggered an infringement incident.

The official website of the U.S. court shows that on July 25 this year , an American company commissioned a law firm to file a lawsuit for "PINK" trademark infringement, with the case number being 23-cv-11661.

According to the official website of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the word PINK was registered as a word trademark as early as 2001 and is still valid.

One seller posted on a social media platform: "Amazon has started to systematically scan PINK accounts, and two of my stores are down."

It is understood that when the seller put up new products, he added the word PINK in the listing, hoping to take advantage of the traffic from the Barbie movie. However, his store closed down before he even started to make any efforts.

A group of sellers who had similar experiences also gathered under the seller's post, and they all expressed that their copyrights were violated because of the word PINK.

In addition to PINK, Barbie, which is closely related to it, also has the risk of being scanned. In the months when the Barbie movie was popular, "Barbie doll" topped the Amazon search list, followed by "Barbie doll", "Barbie women's clothing", "Barbie women's shirt" and "Barbie Dreamhouse".

Some sellers took advantage of the situation to launch new products overnight , while others put some ideas into old products. But the result was that their cleverness backfired. One seller said that he was scanned by Amazon because he wanted to take advantage of the popularity of the word "BarbieCrocs". He wanted to take advantage of the popularity, but ended up losing more than he gained. The seller said that he was the one who was fooled.

As we all know, Amazon does not allow brand words to be added to product titles and keywords without the brand's authorization. Once the brand searches for them, not only the sellers but also Amazon will be accused of "tolerating counterfeit goods."

In today's era, cross-border sellers have to be extremely careful with every step they take, and the industry has even spawned businesses that specialize in making complaints about sellers for a living.

It is understood that many US law firms, especially several headquartered in Chicago, have been paying attention to large-scale infringement cases and suing sellers on Amazon or other platforms.

In order to avoid pitfalls, some sellers have summarized the common words that may involve infringement, including 100%, one, Tetris, yoyo, Organic, Frisbee, airbag, Generic, Brandless, Nologo, N/A, N/B, nobrand, Apple, Chapstick, Band-Aid, polo, Hula Hoop, VELCRO, etc. These words have been registered with corresponding copyrights, and even commemorative words such as happy birthday and Father's Day have been registered with copyrights, which is really a headache for sellers.

In the future, when selecting products or launching new ones, sellers must do verification work in advance to ensure that the products they sell will not be affected by these common words.

Common words

Infringement

Amazon