A common word infringed the rights of the seller, and multiple stores were shut down

"The first lesson in cross-border business is being accused of copyright infringement. Those who have not taken this lesson have not entered the cross-border circle."

Infringement has always been a high-incidence event in the cross-border circle. Appearance infringement and trademark infringement are easy to fall into traps if you are not careful. For single word trademarks, many words are obviously common and common words, but they have already been registered as patents and copyrights, and sellers fall into traps inexplicably.

Recently, another group of sellers have fallen into infringement traps due to common and hot words.

PINK trademark owner sued for infringement, and multiple sellers' stores closed

The hottest topic in Europe and America this summer is Barbie dolls, and the pink trend it has triggered remains popular.

Google Trends shows that in the United States and even around the world, the search popularity of "PINK" as a keyword has always been at a high level.

On Amazon, the hot search rankings of various types of products with the keyword "PINK" have continued to rise in recent days.

The pink trend is unstoppable, and sellers will naturally not miss this wave of popularity. As early as April, many sellers said on social platforms that they added pink to the products they sold.

"——The Barbie movie is about to be released, so hurry up and make a pink version to catch the wave of popularity.

——This year’s hottest color! Add it to my products now, and wait for the orders to explode.”

It is not known whether these sellers have experienced 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 , Ceremony of Roses Acquisition LLC commissioned M. Lawrence Oliverio, Esq. to file a lawsuit for "PINK" trademark infringement , with case number 23-cv-11661 .

According to the USPTO official website, PINK was registered as a word trademark as early as 2001 and is still valid. The pink trend brought by the Barbie movie has led a group of sellers to follow suit, but they never expected to fall into trouble with this color word.

" Amazon has started scanning numbers for PINK, and two of my stores have been 'killed . '" A seller posted on a social platform that he included the color word PINK in the listing when he launched a new product in May. "This product was the best-selling one among all the new products, and I wanted to continue to work hard in the future, but I didn't expect it to fail."

A group of sellers involved in the case also gathered under the seller's post, saying that the word PINK infringed their copyrights. "Color words can be registered as trademarks. If all color words are registered, won't this leave us with nowhere to go?"

On Amazon, when Ennet searches for the keyword “PINK”, more than 100,000 listings pop up . Do these listings involve infringement risks?

Not necessarily. The scope of impact this time is limited because the word trademark PINK is only registered in Class 41 entertainment services and Class 09 music recordings . If the seller does not sell related categories, there is no risk in using the word.

“Even if you are accidentally hit by the Amazon system, you can quickly appeal successfully,” said a home furnishing seller whose number was mistakenly scanned because of this word.

Currently, the pink economy fueled by Barbie is still in its explosive growth phase. On various overseas social media and e-commerce platforms, anything related to Barbie pink has received extremely high attention, triggering wave after wave of shopping sprees.

But please note that PINK is risky, and the highly popular word Barbie is also risky.

Keyword search volume increased 100 times, and sellers were scanned for using the hot word " Barbie "

Noogata data points out that in the past eight weeks, " Barbie doll " has topped the Amazon search list, followed by " Barbie doll " , " Barbie women's clothing " , " Barbie women's shirt " and " Barbie Dreamhouse " , all of which are related to Barbie. " BarbieCrocs " is the fastest growing search term, with a 10,000% increase in July .

The popularity brought by Barbie is not only reflected in searches, but also not limited to the Amazon platform.

Barbie sales on Shopify surged 56% in the second quarter , and Mattel, a well-known toy manufacturer, expects sales of Barbie to continue to grow in the coming months and even years, driven by the movie.

Earlier, some independent website sellers took advantage of the " Barbie fever " to make a small fortune, with the daily sales of related products reaching more than $3,000.

Even the related decorations and clothing that appeared in the Barbie movies were sold out. The sales boom brought by Barbie was very long-lasting.

Google Trends shows that the search popularity of the keyword " BarbieCrocs " began to soar in March this year. Although it has declined since then, it is still at a very high position. With the release of the movie in July, the popularity began to rise rapidly again.

It is reported that in the first weekend of its release alone, Barbie earned $155 million in North America , setting a new record for the first weekend box office in North America in 2023. However, after three weeks of release, the box office of Barbie movies has exceeded the $1 billion mark.

Noogata noted that as consumers return to theaters to watch the live-action Barbie film , sales of Barbie - related toys, clothing and accessories are likely to rise.

The hot "Barbie Economy" will naturally not be missed by sellers. Some sellers took advantage of the opportunity to launch new products overnight, while others put some ideas into old products.

Not long ago, a seller said on a social platform that he was scanned by Amazon for riding on the popular word " BarbieCrocs ". "I just wanted to try my luck, but I didn't expect that just after the word was added, I woke up and the account was gone. It's not unfair, but I'm stupid."

Yien.com noticed that some sellers are "humbly asking for advice" on social platforms: Can I piggyback on other keywords? Will it be considered an infringement if I embed Barbie in the keywords? Or should I embed it in the 5 points?

The comment section attracted a wave of messages:

“——I have personally verified that the listing was scanned and marked as infringing

——A link was taken down yesterday.

——Are you so brave? Some traffic can be discarded.

——If you want to make quick money by riding on the popularity, be careful that you may be left behind before you earn anything. Just take it slow and steady.

..."

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."

It can be expected that once such a well-known IP buzzword is used , Amazon will be the first to intervene without waiting for the brand to intervene.

First there was the commonly used color word PINK, and then there was the well-known IP hot word Barbie . Some of them wanted to take advantage of the popularity, and some just used a common word, but the sellers who used these words all fell into the infringement trap.

As for commonly used words, 100% , one , Tetris , yoyo , Organic , Frisbee , airbag , Generic, Brandless, Nologo, N/A, N/B, nobrand , Apple, Chapstick, Band-Aid, polo, Hula Hoop , VELCRO , etc. have all been registered for corresponding copyrights. Even anniversary-related words such as happy birthday and Father's Day have been registered for copyrights, which is really a headache for sellers.

Although the copyright scope of these words is limited, sellers must be careful to verify when using them to ensure that the categories sold are not within the scope of their copyright.

Closure of shop

Infringement