Making trouble! A large number of Amazon sellers received warning emails, complaining and removing their listings if they don’t pay!

Every year during the peak season, there are unscrupulous peers who cause trouble, and this year is no exception, and they are particularly rampant. Not only do they maliciously complain and remove listings, but they also threaten and blackmail, and will not stop until they get the money.

According to the information we have collected, there are two main types of spoofs used by unscrupulous peers:

The seller reported that his listing, which was selling well, was maliciously complained of copyright infringement, and the removal email sent by Amazon also contained a strong warning flavor.

The contact information in the emails almost always has the words "contact to withdraw the lawsuit but no reply after X hours and continue to complain". The seller has tried to contact them actively, but the other party said that they can withdraw the lawsuit but need to pay. After receiving the money, the other party did withdraw the lawsuit as agreed, but soon they would repeat the same trick~

Browsing cross-border forums, I found that many sellers have encountered this situation. Malicious complaints of copyright infringement are highly destructive and difficult to appeal. Sellers are already reluctant to face it, and now with threats and blackmail, it is even more difficult to deal with.

How to deal with it?

There are two common types of malicious copyright infringement complaints: one is to copy the seller's listing to a self-built website or other sites, and the other is to move the seller's pictures to a cloud disk, etc., and then turn the tables and complain about copyright infringement. If the seller cannot prove the copyright ownership, or happens to be making an infringing product, it is easy to be caught.

This spoof exploits Amazon's copyright infringement complaint loophole, which is hard to prevent. The best way to deal with it is to take precautions before it happens. Save the information that can prove the copyright ownership in advance , so that you can appeal and restore the listing faster and more effectively when encountering malicious complaints. For example:

① When taking product pictures, save the original pictures and some proof of creation with time nodes;

② Establish an independent brand website. Before uploading the listing to Amazon, you can upload it to the independent website for filing;

③Register the copyright of original works in a timely manner (registering after the listing is removed can also effectively solve the problem);

…

If you have not saved the information in advance, you can choose to file a DMCA complaint, but before submitting, you must confirm that the listing is not infringing . If you submit it in the case of infringement, once the other party sues or Amazon determines that it is used incorrectly, you will face the risk of being blocked.

One seller revealed that he was extorted nearly 550,000 yuan by a trademark thief because the German trademark of the accessories he sold was registered by someone else. After the other party successfully registered the trademark, they filed an infringement complaint, placed a test buy order in advance, and even planned to spend 1,000 euros to have a lawyer issue a German fast temporary injunction to freeze the seller's account. The other party was so aggressive that the seller had no choice but to compromise and spend money to solve the problem.

Malicious trademark registration is usually done to extort money, and the price offered is not low. If you don’t pay, they will continue to “pressure” you with various spoof tricks, such as tampering with listing image information, adding other trademarks to listings and titles, etc.

▼A Hong Kong company was reported to have registered nearly 50 trademarks

How to deal with it?

① For trademarks that are under application but not yet approved for registration, you can file an objection to the Trademark Office as soon as possible.

② For a trademark that has been successfully registered, you can apply to declare it invalid or cancel it.

③If neither of the above two methods is applicable, you can choose to invest to "redeem" the registered trademark.

But no matter what you do, it is time-consuming, labor-intensive and expensive, so it is best to prevent problems before they happen:

① Strengthen trademark detection. If an enterprise/seller has plans to enter overseas markets, it is necessary to pay attention to local trademark application announcements and file an objection or lawsuit in a timely manner if it finds preemptive registration, so as to nip preemptive registration in the bud.

② Register your trademark as soon as possible. Trademark registration is strictly territorial and is only protected in the place of registration. Domestically registered trademarks are not protected by law overseas. Therefore, sellers need to register overseas trademarks as soon as possible to protect their own interests.

③ Conduct defensive registration. Trademark protection is divided into categories. You can conduct defensive registrations for categories of goods that are similar or dissimilar to the trademark and make good trademark layout to avoid infringement.

In the current peak season, listings cannot afford to fail. Malicious complaints/preemptive registrations can result in listing removal at best, or even threats and blackmail at worst, so we have to be on guard. To help you better deal with the problem, we have invited professional intellectual property service provider Jite to help our sellers compile a practical anti-prank package, which includes:

1. Inquiry & Complaint Tutorial

① Trademark search tutorials for the United States, the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, etc.

②Global Design Patent Search Tutorial

③US Copyright Query Tutorial

④Amazon Copyright Infringement Complaint Guide

⑤How to file a patent infringement complaint on Amazon

2. Infringement Complaint Template

①DMCA Notice Letter Template

② Trademark Infringement/Mistaken Trademark Infringement Complaint Template

③Malicious patent infringement complaint template

④ Template for appeal against infringement of original images

⑤ Product image infringement and sales ban complaint template