This common word is being sued again! It may affect 100,000 listings

• You cannot add non-manufacturer branded intellectual property to product images or product titles;

• If you are not the manufacturer, you cannot list any packaging or unrelated items (including supplementary services) as unique products in the bundle;

• You cannot release a bundle under a “generic” brand, nor can you release an unbranded product in a bundle;

• The entire bundle code should be clearly displayed in the product image.

In the cross-border e-commerce circle, counterfeit products are common. In order to protect their own rights and interests, many sellers have registered trademarks and patents. However, even so, registered trademarks and patents may still become potential risks for other sellers.

Recently, the rights protection actions taken by the American DTC home furnishing company Purple Innovation, LLC have caused trouble for many sellers.

The company mainly sells purple home furnishing products, with an annual revenue of about US$500 million, and is considered a home furnishing giant with a certain influence in the cross-border circle. Previously, it had registered the company name, which is also the color word "PURPLE" , as a trademark, and also registered many other appearance patents.

In recent years, the company has continuously initiated rights protection lawsuits. This is the fourth case this year alone. The previous three were 24-cv-21362, 24-cv-21626 in April and 24-cv-60734 in May. The range of sellers involved is quite wide.

In the 24-cv-61536 lawsuit filed in August this year , Purple Innovation sued a large number of Amazon sellers on the grounds that the defendants infringed the company's 11 trademarks and 7 appearance patents.

It is reported that the defendants in this case include several Amazon China sellers. The court has now issued a TRO injunction to restrict them from continuing to sell infringing goods.

It is worth noting that one of the infringed trademarks is the commonly used color word "Purple", the trademark registration number is 5661556, the application date is July 2018, the effective date is January 2019, and it is still within the effective period.

Purple Innovation claims that any use of the color word in the category of other trademarks will be considered infringement .

This incident caught many sellers off guard. As a common color word, searching for "purple" as a keyword on the Amazon platform reveals more than 100,000 related listings .

In other words, all 100,000 listings are at risk of infringement . This is just one of the trademark registration keywords involved in the case. The remaining 10 trademark registration words and 7 appearance patents also threaten the security of a large number of listings.

In fact, in recent years, there have been more and more cases of common words being registered as trademarks.

"USB" , as the most commonly used keyword in 3C, was registered. Some 3C sellers used this word in their listings and were found guilty of infringement and suffered heavy losses.

"Pink" was registered as a word trademark as early as 2001 and is still valid. Last year, the Barbie movie brought a pink trend. A group of sellers followed the trend and listed related color products and used the word "pink" in the listing. In the end, they did not make money, but their products were removed from the shelves and even their stores were closed.

There are also the following commonly used words, all of which have caused sellers to suffer heavy losses due to infringement issues.

Whether it is proper nouns, degree words, quantifiers, adjectives, or color words, they can all be seen as registered trademarks. If you search on Amazon, you will find that many listings use these words as keywords, and many sellers have paid a lot of tuition in this regard.

These cases also remind all sellers once again that when selling products on cross-border e-commerce platforms, they must attach great importance to intellectual property issues and avoid infringement disputes due to the use of common words.

Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday are coming soon, and the number of infringement cases will surely increase. Sellers should conduct sufficient market research and intellectual property rights inquiries to ensure that the words, patterns and other elements used do not infringe on the intellectual property rights of others.

If the above infringing words are involved, it is recommended that sellers take action as soon as possible to check and modify the listing to avoid potential legal disputes.