I'm already at the police station, "an Amazon seller told Yien the other afternoon.
The cause of the incident was that the seller's trademark was registered and extorted by the other party. In recent years, such incidents have occurred frequently, and recently, it has been reported that a large number of trademarks have been registered across different categories. In these incidents, criminals caught the seller's inability to afford and fear of affecting sales, and frequently committed crimes. Moreover, other sellers have reported that a new method of preemptive registration derived from trademarks has emerged, and some have been complained of being taken off the shelves80 links.
Complaints after a large number of trademarks were registered across categories, with the largest brand selling $10 million annually
Before publishing, Yi'en.com contacted the aforementioned seller again,Given the money, the other party withdrew the lawsuit. Although he finally compromised, he said he was still very angry every time he thought about this matter.
Previously, the seller sent the ransomware email received from the other party to Yien Network, and the entire email could only be usedUse the words' arrogant 'and' naked 'to describe it.
The other party expressed their intention at the beginning of the email, and in order to solve this matter, the seller needs to pay6000 yuan, paid 4000 yuan first, withdrew the lawsuit, and then paid 2000 yuan. He removed the brand registration and cancelled the US Trademark Office brand.
In the process of communicating with the seller, the other party stated that they are social loafers, with people in both black and white. They all know the public security, procuratorate, and disciplinary commission, and they cannot privately help others search for information. Moreover, they are professional in this field, and their information has long been separated by several layers, making it difficult to find them.
He also seized on the seller's psychology and said that if it costs only a few thousand yuan, the lawsuit will be withdrawn, not 100000 yuan. If it is hard to fight, it will only be detrimental to the seller, not like spending small money to dissipate wealth and disaster.
The phenomenon of brand registration is not new, but there has been a growing trend recently.
Recently, a large number of Amazon sellers have reported that they have faced cross category trademark infringement complaints and links have been removed from the shelves.
What is cross category registration? asA was originally a brand in the clothing category, but was registered in other categories such as healthcare or electronics.
Nowadays, some people have taken advantage of Amazon's policy of immediately removing complaints and registering trademarks across categories. After the brand is registered, they return to complain about brand infringement in the original category.
They are very toxic and usually pick the link that sells the best for you, "a seller told Yi'en. com on the day, and he and three of his peers have all encountered such complaints, with the largest brand having annual sales of around $10 million.
The best-selling link for the seller being complained about now has a daily sales volume20000 US dollars, "the other party complained about our four ASINs on this link. After we contacted him, he withdrew the lawsuit. He analyzed and said, "Now they are not very tough and will definitely kill you, so we do not agree that it is a peer prank, and we are more inclined to have someone use it for extortion. “
He further said:At present, the other party has not explicitly requested money. On the one hand, they may be afraid of leaving evidence, and on the other hand, they openly tell the seller that your lifeline is in my hands, and I can hang up your link in minutes
So even if it hasn't been extorted now, it hasn't caused significant losses, but it just feels disgusting. "The seller was helpless and angry.
In fact, regarding the cross category registration of trademarks, as early asSellers have been providing feedback since early November. A seller said on a social media platform that their brand has been around for several years, but now suddenly someone is rushing to register for other categories and I don't know what to do.
According to previous reports from peer media, sellers have already caused significant losses due to cross category registration of trademarks.
Trademark maliciously registered as a domain name, seller complained of 80 links becoming a dog
Just as the seller hates those unscrupulous individuals who maliciously register trademarks and then extort themWhen their teeth itch, their new extortion methods appear again, which are derived from trademarks, but the cost of crime is much lower than that of registering trademarks.
Not long ago, a seller approached Yien Network and saidThey haveAll 80 links have been complained of becoming dogs, and the reason for the complaint is trademark infringement,We are our own brand, a 25 class trademark in the United States, and obtained certification in March last year, so we feel very confused about this reason
At first, the seller thought it was retaliation from their peers, as they had previously filed a copyright complaint against their peers for stealing their model images. Amazon ruled that the other party violated the rules and deleted the link.
But they quickly realized that they had made a mistake when the seller clicked on the contact information of the rights holder at the end of the complaint email,Jumping out is a remarkable”Domain Name Transfer and Sale "page.As shown in the following figure:
click”Go buy ", Buy It Now price: 8888 yuan. Subsequently, the seller uses thisbe known as”The Alibaba Cloud Mi Store of Domain Name Trading Service continued to search and found that there were 15 pages inside, with up to 723 domain names for sale, with the majority of prices being three: 5555 yuan, 7777 yuan, and 8888 yuan.
”The domain names inside are mostly newly registered, and II casually searched for some domain names on the first page and found that they are all brands on Amazon.The seller said that it wasn't until then that they realized,Illegal individuals use their trademarks, also known as brand names, to register domain names, file trademark complaints, and ultimately extort money,”Our trademarkAfter being registered by them on November 27th, they immediately came to our store to complain. “
When disclosing information to Yi'en.com, the seller's store80% of the links have become dogs, and after continuous appeals, appeals, and changes, they have become physically and mentally exhausted.
”As long as they don't buy their domain name, they will be reported crazily, and even if the link can appeal back, it will quickly become a dog again. The seller is very helpless: "We are a clothing manufacturer, and there are many brands under one brandASIN, he reported every one of them, and to appeal, he had to provide a series of supporting documents such as invoices, which took a lot of effort and time. They reported several of them after the appeal was filed, but in the end, it was in vain. “
The seller told YiEn that Amazon's current approach is to accept any infringement complaints without any review, and the links of the complained seller will become a dog,”They just know this, that's why they keep disgusting you. Although 8888 yuan is not a lot, giving it to them is like swallowing a fly
Although we registered a trademark in the United States, its. com domain name is global and difficult to defend against. "The seller was very angry." Registering a domain name now, no matter which website it is on, is very cheap. It takes about 60 yuan to manage it for a year. Registering a trademark and then extorting it costs thousands of yuan. They are now equivalent to using 60 yuan to extort 5555-8888 yuan, which is really despicable
Before publishing, Yi'en contacted the seller again, and he stated that all their links have now been appealed back. Previously, there were plans to sue the malicious whistleblower, and the lawyer was also willing to accept it. The chances of victory were uncertain because if a lawsuit was to be filed, evidence would need to be provided. However, when we approached Amazon, customer service refused on the grounds of protecting the whistleblower's information. At Alibaba Cloud Mi Store, except for oneQQ email doesn't have any information, so it's like there's no way to take them“Many sellers now do not know that this domain name can be complained about, so they want to expose them. On the one hand, they remind other sellers to take precautions, and on the other hand, they also want to rectify this behavior.”
China's trademark applications in the United States have surged, raising concerns about malicious and fraudulent registration attempts
During the pandemic, economies around the world entered"Blocked, however, trademark application activities are rapidly increasing.
On June 23rd, a blog article by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published an article written by the Director of the Trademark Office, David Gooder, which mentioned that,Since last autumn, trademark applications from the United States and foreign countries have surged to an unprecedented level.As ofOn June 17th, the number of applicants increased by approximately 63% compared to last year, which means that the number of applicants increased by approximately 211000. In December 2020 alone, USPTO received 92608 trademark applications, an increase of 172% compared to December 2019.The surge in trademark applications has caused a backlog, extending the waiting time for initial applications to an average5.2 months, the waiting time for final processing of applications has been extended to an average of 10.5 months.
World Trademark Review（An article by WTR also pointed out that 2020 was a record year for trademark applications by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Compared to 2019, the annual growth rate is 35%, with a total of over 636000 US trademark applications submitted (a record of 470000 applications set in 2019). For this reason,The United States Patent and Trademark OfficeIn 2021, the fee standards were also changed, increasing the cost of submitting applications online from $225 per category to $250.
At the same time, it also points out that sinceSince the beginning of 2020, over 27% of US trademark applications have been submitted by Chinese interest groups. Moreover, the peak of trademark application in December 2020 was mainly influenced by Chinese activities.
In fact, in recent years, the number of Chinese trademark applications in the United States has been increasing.
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office（U. According to S. Patent and Trademark Office, between 2013 and 2017, the number of trademark applications from China surged by 1264%, from less than 5000 to over 76000. Since then, this number has been on the rise. Barton Beebe, a professor of intellectual property law at New York University School of Law, stated that,The United States Patent and Trademark OfficeIn 2020, 171000 trademark applications were received from China, equivalent to one out of every four new applications.
The rapid growth of application volume is inseparable from the assistance of cross-border e-commerce sellers, especially Amazon sellers. Cai Jingming, a lawyer at Tianhua Law Firm in San Jose, California(Transliteration) believes that the development of e-commerce companies such as Amazon is an important reason for the surge in trademark applications in China. He said, "With the increase in trade between China and the United States, Amazon has become increasingly important, requiring businesses to register their brands“
According to e-commerce analysis, institutional market fluctuations（Marketplace Pulse report,Among Amazon's best-selling merchants, the proportion of Chinese sellers varies fromFrom 11% in May 2016 to 42% at the end of 2020.
Merchants who have registered trademarks are eligible to join the Amazon brand registration process（Amazon Brand Registry plans to provide more protection for their brand and make it easier for their products to gain user trust.
However, with the soaring number of trademark applications, malicious and fraudulent registration attempts that are not intended for use have also attracted attention.
According to the regulations of the Federal Trademark Office, applicants must prove that the trademark has commercial use within the United States. Bibe said that some trademark applications from China can be seen to have fraudulent and suspicious usage information from the submitted product sample images, as the images containThe traces of the P image, or the trademark on the product in the image, do not exist in the original but have been later replaced.
He said,The United States is facing the problem of exhaustion of trademark resources, and almost all English words have already been registered as trademarks. Nowadays, even if words are created or any combination of letters is used as a trademark, there is a possibility that they have already been registered. He said that fraudulent trademark registration from China exacerbates the problem and harms the interests of legitimate businesses and trademark holders in the United States and even in China.
For sellers, the harm of this malicious and fraudulent betting phenomenon is also evident.
At the beginning of this month, the United States Patent and Trademark Office revoked the agency of an intellectual property agency in ShenzhenMore than 1500 trademarks, with the reason being suspected of illegal applications, including multiple users of the application account, theft of US lawyer information, and forging lawyer signatures. At that time, many sellers stated that their trademarks were on the revocation list. The real brand also paid the money, but in the end, the word 'revocation' came along, which can be said to have been disastrous.
In addition, as mentioned earlier, some unscrupulous individuals may use malicious betting to extort sellers.
The EU trademark is popular, and China has become the country with the largest number of registrations
World Trademark Review（According to an article by WTR, in 2020, China became the largest country in the EU in terms of trademark application volume. In 2020, the number of trademark applications from the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) reached a historic high of 147045. Although the application volume of the institution has been increasing since 2016, the growth rate sharply accelerated last year, with the number of applicantsGrow14%,andThe average annual growth rate from 2016 to 2019 was 8%. This upward trend continued until the first half of 2021.As ofData at the end of AprilRecorded36% growth, with 55879 applications as of July this year.
The article provides the answer to the sources of these demands: most of them are contributed by Chinese merchants.
According to a report by The Economist in Spain,Last year, China transferred its headquarters to Alicante, Spain（Alicante's European Intellectual Property Office has submitted 28755 trademark registration applications.In just one year, the number of trademarks applied by China in the European Union has significantly increased88%, jumping from 9.5% of the total in 2019 to 16.3%. Moreover, a report released by the European Intellectual Property Office earlier this year stated that the top ten applicants accounted for only 4.0% of the total EU trademark applications from China.
Under a large number of registration applications, which trademarks are most popular among Chinese merchants?
The above-mentioned report from the European Intellectual Property Office states that,Between 2010 and 2019,Top ranked products in EU trademark applications from China/The service categories are in order: 9th category (electrical equipment and computers, accounting for up to 20.2%), 25th category (clothing and footwear, accounting for 7.3%), 11th category (lighting and HVAC equipment, accounting for 7.1%), and 35th category (advertising and business management, accounting for 6.0%).
In addition, under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Xinguan,In 2020, the number of EU trademark applications related to Class 10 (medical devices and equipment) accepted by the European Intellectual Property Office was also very large, with over 25% coming from China.
According to statistics from the European Intellectual Property Office, the vast majority of EU trademark applications from China are submitted by small and medium-sized enterprises. As is well known, Europe is the main market for many Amazon sellers besides the United States, and the annual registration volume of EU trademarks is also very large.The EU trademark is owned by the EU27 countries (the UK has Brexited and is no longer protected) have obtained community trademark protection, which means that sellers can register an EU trademark and use it on Amazon sites such as Germany, France, and SpainThe advantage is very significant.
There are two options for registering EU trademarks, one is toEU Intellectual Property Office（EUIPOSubmit an application, and the other is to extend the registered Madrid trademark to the European Union. For EU trademarks, it is generally possible to apply through a fast application channel（Fast track) to apply, the trademark will be issued within 3-4 months.
However, it is precisely due to the characteristics of fast certification, easy application (only requiring name, mailing address, nationality information), and low cost of EU trademarks that illegal individuals can take advantage of. In developed countries, the EU has also become a region with high risk of trademark registration. On Amazon, there may be situations where a seller opens a European website to sell products with better sales in the United States, but suddenly receives an infringement complaint or discovers that the trademark has already been registered before listing. In this situation, if they want to continue selling, they can only negotiate with the trademark holder for transfer, and at this point, these illegal elements will demand high transfer fees.
Therefore, the European Union is one of the key regions that sellers need to consider when seeking global protection of their trademark brands.
As mentioned earlier, there have been so many cases of trademark preemption, and the harm of trademark preemption to Amazon sellers is also significant. So, if a trademark is preempted, what methods can sellers solve? Overall, the response methods can be roughly divided into three types: laissez faire, negotiation and reconciliation, and resolute crackdown. Let go of thisTemporary laziness often leaves great hidden dangers behind. In the process of trademark application, most countries have a third-party objection procedure. If the seller discovers a rush to register, they can entrust an agent in the target country to raise objections. If a trademark is registered in the European Union, there are three major strategies to combat it: first, trademark objections; 2、 Malicious registration of invalid trademark application; 3、 Invalid application for trademark not used for five years. Due to the time-consuming and labor-intensive methods of combating confrontation, which also require a considerable amount of money, and the important thing is that it may result in missed sales opportunities. Therefore, negotiating and settling disputes is a common approach adopted by sellers. Illegal elements who register trademarks and extort sellers also capture this mentality.
It can be seen that the processing results of the three methods are not very perfect, so Yi'en.com believes that a better way to address the issue of trademark registration is for sellers to layout their trademarks globally. But there is also a loophole in this approach. During the period when it is not rejected, criminals can useTM filing for extortion.