Amazon ban warning! This product is removed from the shelves immediately!

As we all know, Amazon has always attached great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights, and selling counterfeit products and infringements is one of its minefields that cannot be touched. Once a product is involved in infringement, the listing will be removed from the shelves at the least, and the account will be banned at the worst, which will lead to a series of chain reactions such as fund seizure and inventory backlog.

At present, common Amazon infringement cases mainly involve trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Among them, appearance patent infringement is the type with the highest pitfall rate.

Relevant news shows that recently a number of Amazon's popular products have crossed the red line of infringement of appearance patents, and some infringing listings have been urgently removed from the shelves.

It is learned that recently a number of Amazon's best-selling products have been involved in patent infringement scandals, and the sellers involved have been sued in court.

Take a simple and stylish sponge headband as an example. There are many similar products on Amazon, with multiple hot-selling links with monthly sales of thousands. It can be seen that the appearance design of these products is basically the same as that of the patent holder, with only the color being different.

▲ The left is the product image, the right is the patent image, the screenshots are from Ruiguan

This sponge headband has been applied for a design patent by Chinese seller Fanjiajia Jin at the US Office of Approval on March 19, 2024, with the patent number US D1,018,980 S. In addition, design patents have also been applied for in many countries including the UK and China.

▲ Appearance patent search report, source: Ruiguan

On November 18, the seller applied for a TRO injunction in the US court, represented by the law firm Lance Liu. Once approved, all the same popular listings on Amazon will face the threat of being removed from the shelves and banned.

In addition, there is another charging protector that also poses an infringement risk. It is reported that the plaintiff brand Binglin Zhong submitted an application on June 17, 2022, and successfully obtained a US patent certificate on December 26, 2023.

Currently, this product is only authorized to be sold in three stores on Amazon, but it also has a large number of hot-selling links of the same model. Binglin Zhong, as the brand owner, also filed a lawsuit on November 15 against the products involved in the infringement of appearance. Many sellers who sell the same products without authorization will face the risk of TRO freezing.

In general, competition on the Amazon platform is becoming increasingly fierce at this stage. In order to quickly increase sales, many new sellers blindly follow the trend of hot-selling products during the product selection and development process, which may lead to infringement risks and ultimately the loss of both their stores and funds.

For this reason, whether it is a long-established top seller or a "newly-experienced" small and medium-sized seller, they all need to abide by compliance operating guidelines during the product selection, development, and sales promotion process, and use professional third-party tools to timely detect and prevent potential infringement risks.

Based on this, Ruiguan has tailored a one-stop cross-border compliance toolbox for Amazon sellers, which can check patent/trademark infringement and policy violations. The appearance patent search function covers patent data from dozens of countries around the world. Sellers can search for patents in seconds by uploading pictures + keywords, and the data recall rate is as high as 97%. It helps sellers to efficiently, comprehensively and accurately detect product appearance patent infringement risks.

Click the link to register and receive a free design patent search card

▲ Scan the code to search for design patents immediately

In light of Amazon’s previous experience of cracking down on infringing products, sellers need to conduct in-depth market research in the early stages of product selection and development, understand the brand distribution and patent status of the products, and analyze whether there are infringement risks in terms of appearance, etc.

However, in the process of detecting infringement of appearance patents, many novice sellers often encounter multiple problems due to lack of experience, and the infringement detection tools they choose fail to provide efficient and reliable assistance.

1. Inaccurate

When detecting infringing products, especially for less popular products, some sellers use keywords that are not precise enough, making it impossible to accurately identify the corresponding appearance patents.

   The keyword you entered cannot be recognized

In addition, some suppliers provide product images that are too complex and confusing, and it is time-consuming and laborious to cut out the images by yourself, which will also lead to inaccurate final patent search results.

The search results do not match the actual image

Not only that, some popular products have strange and varied appearance designs. For these unconventional products, patent search tools can hardly match similar patents.

There is a difference between the search results and the actual images

2. Incomplete search

For sellers with a multi-channel global layout, their products cover the mainstream markets in Europe and the United States, as well as emerging markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. While having a wide variety of products, they also face more diverse potential infringement risks.

However, many infringement detection tools on the market currently lack a large and comprehensive appearance patent database, making it difficult to fully match the infringement prevention needs of sellers in different countries.

Incomplete search results

3. Slow checking

For sellers with a large number of SKUs, the pace of launching new products is relatively fast. If infringement searches take too long, it will not meet the company's product launch needs.

At present, many common patent detection methods are relatively complicated and time-consuming and labor-intensive. One of the major pain points is that there are no similar patents on the first page of search results, which requires sellers to spend a lot of time browsing.

There are no similar patents on the first page

For example, most patents need to be searched on multiple foreign patent office websites, and only keywords can be used for detection; in addition, some sellers seek help from law firms to search for infringements, but the detection efficiency is low. It takes a day to check a product, and the cost is relatively high.

In response to the above problems faced by sellers, Ruiguan has launched a design patent search tool. Compared with other tools on the market, it can help sellers solve various infringement detection problems and has the following multiple advantages:

• Accurate query: Powerful matching algorithm makes patent search results more accurate.

• Comprehensive data: Backed by a strong data team, the latest patents are included on the same day.

• Easy operation: The operation threshold is low. You only need to upload pictures or links to quickly search. Even a novice can easily get started.

• Efficient detection: True patent search by image, even the most complex images can accurately identify products and capture matching patents.

• High cost-effectiveness: The average search costs less than 0.2 cents, effectively reducing the seller's infringement detection costs.

Ruiguan patent database has more than 160 million patents , and the patent data is updated daily. When using Ruiguan to search for design patents, the system will intelligently filter and prioritize the most similar patent results on the homepage, completely saying goodbye to the cumbersome patent search process, so that each patent search can be completed efficiently in just 30 seconds.

In addition, after the search process is completed, the system will automatically generate a patent infringement risk report, clearly marking high-risk sites, providing sellers with accurate data support and risk prevention suggestions in the decision-making process before new products are put on the shelves.

Combining with specific cases, in the face of the pain point of "inaccurate search", Ruiguan's appearance patent search tool relies on powerful algorithm capabilities to automatically identify product keywords. Even if it is a "niche product" with random keywords, the patent can be accurately searched; even the most complex product pictures can be "intelligently cut out" with the help of functions such as intelligent image cutting.

Even if you enter incorrect keywords, you can still get accurate matches

In the face of the situation of "incomplete search", Ruiguan covers patent data from dozens of countries around the world and realizes comprehensive search, so that no infringing patents "slip through the net". At the same time, it generates patent infringement risk reports and high-risk site warnings to assist sellers in making decisions on new product listings.

More patent infringements found

In view of the pain point of "slow search", Ruiguan's appearance patent search tool is easier to operate than competing products on the market, freeing sellers' hands. Only product links need to be uploaded to intelligently extract product information, and the most similar patents in the search results are all on page 1, without wasting time searching.

The first is patent infringement

If you want to achieve fast, efficient and comprehensive detection of appearance patents to avoid infringement pitfalls, click [Read original text] to choose Ruiguan Appearance Patent Search Free Detection to protect your Amazon sales.