Sellers, please note! Another product has been sued for infringement

As the cross-border e-commerce market develops rapidly, many sellers have entered the market to try to share this pie. As more and more sellers enter the market, the competition becomes fierce. In order to achieve higher sales, sellers pay more attention to the unique patents of their products.

It is understood that in 2020 , when cross-border e-commerce was at its hottest, infringement issues of trademarks, patents, and copyrights were prevalent . Malicious trademark registration and intellectual property infringement have dealt a heavy blow to many Amazon sellers who lack compliance awareness. This is especially true for some small household items that people thought were widely available in the market, but they didn't know that they had already been patented.

Recently, a certain hook was sued for infringement in New York, USA. The brand is from Shantou, China. It is understood that the hook was patented as early as February 5, 2021, but the same product can still be seen on sale by different brands on Amazon. It is unknown whether the original brand has authorized it.

The Slushy Cup , a popular smoothie squeeze cup on Tik Tok , has seen unexpectedly high sales on Amazon recently . However, sellers should be careful not to blindly pursue the popularity and be alert to the risk of infringement. Upon investigation, the Slushy Cup has been patented in 19 countries, including North America, Asia, and the European Union, and the registered company is Chill Factor Global Pty Ltd.

"Even if the sky falls, it won't stop Americans from eating hot dogs." At the peak of the outbreak, when groceries were being looted in the United States, the retailer Costco made a special statement to comfort American consumers that the stock of hot dogs was enough to last another year. According to statistics , Americans consume 19 billion hot dogs each year, 90 per person, worth $500 million, and the hot dogs they eat can circle the earth 26 times.

As you can imagine, hot dog-related processing tools have become a necessity for almost every household in the United States. SLOTDOG® , a hot dog processor that is popular on Amazon , has registered 8 categories of trademarks in the United States and Canada : hand tools. As long as the word "hand tool" is used in hand tool products, there is a risk of infringement .

Sellers should be aware that the same product has the risk of infringement as long as it meets the exclusive description . As cross-border e-commerce becomes more and more popular, platforms and brands are paying more and more attention to compliance. During last year's Amazon account ban, many sellers paid a heavy price for the word "non-compliance". I don't need to remind you of this.

In the global e-commerce trade environment that is becoming more compliant, Chinese sellers going overseas must be vigilant. Not only must product patents comply with regulations, but brand awareness must also be strengthened. I have seen sellers who created brands without registering them when putting their products on the shelves . Later, during the sales process, the brands were registered, resulting in product sales being banned. Due to the lack of awareness of intellectual property compliance, sellers can only accept the losses caused by others' preemptive registration .

In short, the road of cross-border e-commerce is not easy nowadays. With sales volume remaining flat, sellers need to raise their awareness of compliance to avoid losses caused by non-compliant products.

Amazon

Compliance