What is EPS? EPS Evaluation

Founded in 2004, EPS (EpstEIN Drangel LLP) is a U.S. law firm specializing in providing a full range of intellectual property services, including all forms of litigation, prosecution, transactional services and commercialization of intellectual property assets.

About EPS

EPS, like GBC, is well known to Chinese sellers for reporting infringements. The main method is to outsource the phishing to a person called NAL, and let NAL collect evidence, that is, take screenshots of infringing products, and use internal messages to obtain sellers' PayPal, etc.

Summary of important cases

-In October 2017, sued Fingering Monkey toys and True Touch pet gloves.

- In November 2017, the company sued the brand Off-White. There were 75 defendants in total, including 11 from AliExpress, 24 from Alibaba International Station, and 40 from DHgate.

-On February 28, 2018, Spin Master Ltd was sued. The trademark was Bunchems and the products were toys. A total of 100 Wish accounts were frozen.

-On March 8, 2018, Off-White LLC, whose products are clothing, had 166 Wish accounts frozen.

-On March 16, 2018, 133 Wish accounts of Moose Toys Pty LTD, with the trademark Shopkins and toys, were frozen.

-On March 28, 2018, Ideavillage, trademark Copper Fit, and a total of 196 Wish sellers were frozen.

-In April 2018, 131 Wish seller accounts were sued for the Ideavillage brand TOUCH, which sells personal hair removal tools.

-In May 2018, the brand was VR BOX, involving platforms such as Dunhuang, AliExpress, Alibaba, and Wish, and a total of 263 sellers were frozen.

-In June 2018, the brand was Off-White. This time, Off-White sued all eBay sellers. 108 eBay accounts were sued and all the eBay accounts have been blocked.

- In August 2018, the brand accused this time was Egglettes, an egg cooker. 121 Wish seller accounts were accused.

-In October 2018, EPS sued several stores that sold infringing products, but several of them had already removed their products from the shelves. The product targeted this time was a lazy blanket with the word Snuggies in the title. Currently, 168 Wish seller accounts have been sued.

-In November 2018, EPS filed three cases against the same brand: Thomas & Friends. Currently, 143 Wish accounts, 60 eBay accounts, and 147 AliExpress/Alibaba accounts have been affected.

Case Analysis

According to statistics, EPS issued a total of 43 cases in 2018, involving 27 brands in total, including 13 new agency brands, including Snuggie, VR BOX, INTENZE, EGGLETTES, COACH, WOW VR, Shopkins, UNO, Pikmi Pops, Thomas the Tank Engine, Twisty Petz, Pomsies and Barbie.

Among them, the brands under Ideavillage and Mattel have the most cases. Ideavillage's brands include Touch hair remover, Copper Fit protector, and Egglettes egg cooker; Mattel's brands include UNO playing cards, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Barbie dolls.

EPS's pattern of filing cases is, first, to file cases successively for different brands of the same company. Taking Mattel as an example, it has filed rights protection cases against Mattel's UNO playing cards, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Barbie brands. Secondly, EPS has formed a habit of filing 2-3 cases in succession to sue sellers of the same brand on different platforms. For example, in the Thomas the Tank Engine case, EPS filed three cases in succession, suing 143 Wish accounts, 60 eBay accounts, and 147 AliExpress and Alibaba accounts.

EPS currently uses screenshots to collect evidence. Without placing real orders, there is no warning of being caught. It is very efficient and can sue hundreds of accounts at a time, which has a huge impact on sellers. EPS also determines the settlement amount based on the number of infringing products sold by the seller. If the seller has sold dozens or hundreds of infringing products, the settlement amount can even be as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars, which has a huge impact on the seller.