Patent complaint unsuccessful? You can read this article

Patent rights: There are three main types of patents, invention patents, utility model patents and design patents. Most of the patents registered by sellers are mainly design patents. To improve the success rate of complaints, we must first clarify the following results.

1. Patent rights are highly territorial. For example, if you register a patent for the United States, it cannot protect the rights and interests of France.

2. Listing time. Many sellers believe that if their products are listed earlier than the other party’s patent application time, it is not considered infringement. This is wrong. For example, in the United States patent, the right owner can apply for a patent within 12 months of the first disclosure of the invention. In other words, it is not considered infringement only if the product is listed one year earlier than the patent application time.

3. Timeliness: Patents have a time limit, so be sure to double-check whether your patent is still valid.

If you are applying for a design patent, you must pay attention to the following matters.

1. In the EU, the appearance patent complaint must be based on design infringement, while in the US, patent rights are divided into appearance and utility.

2. Complaints from new stores are not as good as those from old stores, and the success rate of stores with brand registration is higher than those without brand registration.

3. The patent application time must be earlier than the listing time of the opponent you want to complain about, otherwise it may not be accepted

4. The European rights holder needs to correspond to the store. If they do not correspond, a patent authorization is required.

5. Without brand registration, you can only go to https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement/signin, but the success rate is low.

If you have a registered U.S. invention patent, you can participate in the neutral evaluation (Amazon Patent Evaluation Express).

The patent evaluation process is that Amazon will hire a third-party patent lawyer as an evaluator to make the final decision on whether our patents are infringed.

1. If someone infringes on our invention patent, we can contact Amazon’s legal department and sign a patent evaluation agreement.

2. We need to provide three pieces of information. The first is the certificate of our valid patent. The second is the ASIN of the infringing product. The third is to explain clearly how the other party infringed our patent rights.

3. After we sign an agreement with Amazon, Amazon will contact the sellers we complained about. The party complained against needs to respond within three weeks. If the party complained against is indeed infringing, there will generally be no response. Then Amazon will delete the link of the party complained against after three weeks.

4. If the party complained against confirms that they have not infringed upon any rights, then they can sign a neutral patent evaluation agreement with Amazon.

5. After Amazon receives the agreement from both parties, it will contact both parties to collect the deposit of 4,000 US dollars. If one party fails to pay, the process will end and the party that fails to pay will automatically lose.

6. If both parties have paid, the assessor will decide the winner. The winning party will get $4,000 back, while the losing party will not get $4,000 back.

If you are sure that your invention patent has been infringed, there are many benefits to using a neutral evaluation. The average decision is made within 7 weeks! The speed is much faster than general patent litigation in the United States, and there is no cost. The $4,000 deposit will be returned after the victory. Amazon's most annoying template response will not happen, and there will be a clear result. After a neutral evaluation victory, you will receive an APEX ID. For the same patent, if you need to report potential infringement again in the future, you can directly provide this APEX ID, which will help ensure that Amazon removes the infringing ASIN.

How to use neutral assessment?

Log in to the Amazon Brand Registry backend -> "Protection" in the menu bar -> Report Violations -> Patent Infringement -> Select "Potential Violations of Utility Patents".