Anger | Cross-border sellers actually deceive compatriots?

For cross-border sellers, the registration of intellectual property rights and trademark patents has always been an issue that is easy to break the law, and it can also be said that it is a blind spot for sellers to develop their stores. Take a recent vicious incident that made countless compatriots angry. Its behavior not only involved intellectual property rights, but also increased to the oppression of many practitioners, which has triggered the anger of large-scale cross-border e-commerce in China.

It is understood that many businesses have complained about this, and the situation is getting more and more serious. Therefore, Mai Jia supports the decision to make a comprehensive report here, hoping to attract more businesses’ attention! This is a vicious and dirty act about a cross-border seller cheating China compatriots, and so far there are far more than 5,000 victims! There are countless platforms involved, including Amazon, Wal-Mart, AliExpress, Alibaba and other e-commerce cross-border platforms.

The following is the specific content about the seller who broke the news:

First, maliciously forge best-selling products and accuse innocent sellers

The original purpose of intellectual property protection and trademark registration patent protection is to encourage the original creators who dare to innovate and strengthen the people’s protection of property rights, but there are always some unscrupulous merchants who make huge profits from it and regard this law as an excellent tool to collect money!

According to a seller, Pro-Wax100 wax melting and depilating machine is an explosion in recent summer, but during this popular period, some unscrupulous e-commerce companies maliciously forged the use certificate of depilating machine, and registered trademark patents and appearance patents in the United States first, and colluded with local rogue law firms. Finally, with the patent certificate in hand, I filed a carpet complaint against a large number of China sellers, and extorted innocent cross-border sellers at will! The seller is one of the victims of thousands of malicious accusations.

The victim seller also introduced that this Pro-Wax100 wax melting and depilating machine has been released in the China market for fifteen years, and it is a well-known public model product, so its appearance patent is also an open mold in the industry, and it has always maintained good sales in various e-commerce platforms, involving enterprises including traditional B2B foreign trade companies, upstream and downstream supporting enterprises of cross-border B2C, and related service providers.

Second, rogue law firms help promote vicious complaints

In fact, the rogue law firm mentioned above is also hostile to such sellers. The history dates back to 2005. About ten years after Chinese people successfully applied for the appearance patent, basically from 2012 to 2016, the same appearance patent of wax melting machine was applied. Because the legal term of patent protection is 10 years, the term of protection has exceeded at that time, and the original obligee failed to renew the patent protection because of the market dominance, and the registrant also gave up the patent claim of the product, so the product naturally became a public appearance that anyone in the market could use for themselves.

Recently, however, this public model product has been targeted by unscrupulous merchants. Merchants selling this product on all major platforms have been sued by Ouyeinc Ltd of the United States for infringement, and Barney & Karamanis, LLP is its agency. According to the seller involved in the case, the infringement case involved in this male model product includes trademark and appearance patent.

The specific infringement complaints are as follows:

However, if the product design and graphic trademarks or related words of any merchant are similar or similar to those of Pro-Wax100 wax melting and depilating machine, it is inevitable that rogue law firms will sue.

3. Malicious forgery and appropriation of the male model patent.

The seller maliciously forged the patent of Pro-wax 100 wax melting machine, and took the male model product as his own. He attached YU JIN from Guangdong, China to the appearance patent of the wax melting machine, and then turned his finger at the innocent related seller.

According to an informed seller:

According to the data collected recently, it is enough to prove that YU JIN is the behind-the-scenes manipulator of the whole wax melting machine forgery patent incident. Afterwards, an innocent victim seller found YU JIN to seek a solution through various means, but the other party proposed to negotiate and settle with the other lawyer, and the other law firm was the American rogue law firm that colluded with it. Therefore, it is conceivable that the other party actually proposed a settlement of $10,000.

It is this public model product that has been shared in China for fifteen years, and it was taken by YU JIN overnight, and colluded with rogue law firms in the United States to point the finger at their compatriots, which really made countless businesses angry and helpless.

According to relevant information, YU JIN was actually only the buyer of Pro-wax 100 wax melting machine, and the brand under his account only took over the production of wax machine products in 17 years, which only belonged to bsr of wax machine under Amazon platform from 2017 to 2018, and his sales volume was less than 500 orders per day on average, and the cumulative comments were only 1389. It is enough to show that he has no advantage in the development of wax melting machine at all, so up to now, he can say that he has given up the development of this product.

It needs to be popularized here: in the patent law of the United States, it is stipulated that the applicant’s successful application for an appearance patent requires that the product be sold within one year. If the product is already on sale, the applicant needs to defend the product and prove with sufficient evidence that the link of the product being sold comes from himself.

Exposed by the victim, YU JIN officially submitted an application for a patent for appearance on September 20, 2017. At that time, the product had existed for more than 12 years, and it was sold on various platforms and websites, including Alibaba International Station, AliExpress, Amazon, etc., and there were hundreds of thousands of sales links.

The victim also pointed out that YU JIN’s patent application has a lot of moisture, and there are fraudulent elements in the product link, the product sales link and the patent application link. However, there is no authoritative organization to confirm whether the news is true, but it is enough to see that YU JIN’s behavior has really angered his fellow sellers. This can be said to be a vicious incident of deliberately squatting patents and maliciously complaining about innocent sellers!

Fourth, the amount involved has exceeded billions.

According to SellerDefense, we know that the related cases of Pro-Wax100 wax melting machine are listed in 20-cv-3491, including 314 accounts that have been sued by the plaintiff. The account platforms are very wide, including AliExpress, Walmart Wal-Mart, DHgate, Alibaba, Joom, etc. Not only that, but the other party even sued Wal-Mart’s JD.COM store. At present, the legal department of JD.COM has responded in the Chicago court.

According to the published list of defendant’s infringement, there is a wide range of platforms, and there are countless shops involved. Only one thousand shops on Amazon platform have been sued. Although Ebay and wish are not on the list of temporary infringement, we can only see the other party’s malicious complaints about infringement from the sued shops.

At present, there is such content in the information. As of July 16th, 2020, all shops involved in Pro-Wax100 wax melting machine, regardless of the size, can’t escape the carpet complaint from rogue law firms in the United States, and the final result is also unsatisfactory. Basically, the accounts of all shops involved in the case have been frozen. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 5,000 sellers and suppliers who are victims of the defendant’s infringement.

Some of the sellers pointed out that the applicant uploaded the link in 2019, and the product was not issued before it was removed from the shelves. The store did not receive any letter from the other court before it was closed. As mentioned earlier, both B2B stores and B2C stores are involved in the case, and from enterprises to suppliers, the total amount involved is conservatively estimated to be several billion. If the sustainable development period is counted, the amount involved may reach tens of billions!

5. Where will the sellers involved go?

So where should these victims go? How to deal with this deliberate accusation?

First of all, Mai Jia supports and suggests that everyone wants to realize the first step of self-help: responding to the lawsuit. If the seller refuses to respond to the lawsuit, he will lose the initiative on the grounds of intentional absence, and the consequence is not only that the account funds cannot be unfrozen, but also that he will be fined. In addition, only responding to the lawsuit can win the case, otherwise it will only accept further punishment from the law, which is not worth the candle. Therefore, responding to the lawsuit can be said to be the first step to save yourself!

According to industry professionals, the trademark and appearance registration in the United States is an objection period within five years, and the aggrieved seller can appeal and go through the “invalid” procedure. but

Moreover, some professionals in the industry have revealed that in the United States, there is an objection period for applying for trademark patents and appearance patents, which is usually five years. Therefore, if there is sufficient evidence, you can also request a complaint, and the next procedure is “invalid”. Just need to emphasize one point, that is, American law firms are sky-high in fees, so generally speaking, for small enterprises or shops, it is simply impossible to bear huge fees, and no professionals can raise objections to the US Patent Office, let alone whether they can take the “invalid” procedure.

However, some defendants and sellers suggested that such problems could be alleviated to a certain extent if the state could assume the responsibility of regulating management. For example, the State Bureau of Commerce, the Intellectual Property Office, the Council for the Promotion of International Trade and other relevant departments jointly investigated the case, and frozen the trademark and appearance patent of Pro-Wax 100 wax melting machine, at the same time, prevented YU JIN from continuing to maliciously blackmail the victim seller, and finally collected all relevant information and certificates, counterclaimed and demanded YU JIN to pay compensation.

The following is the relevant legal basis, please refer to Article 23 of the Patent Law of People’s Republic of China (PRC).

All kinds of remarks express a point: if this case cannot be thoroughly investigated and dealt with fairly, it will certainly make such behaviors emerge endlessly and intensify, and more and more unscrupulous people will exploit loopholes in the law, which will make these people more and more inflated and make more compatriots suffer from it!

VI. Compatriots pit each other is a loophole in cross-border industries.

In fact, the maintenance of network intellectual property rights has always been difficult. In addition to this kind of cases of patent application for public model products that have occurred continuously in recent years, there are also a large number of unscrupulous merchants who collude with rogue law firms in the United States to maliciously extort compensation from innocent sellers. The biggest victims of these infringement cases are budding sellers with small capital operation.

These victims spontaneously set up sellers’ rights protection organizations, and some sellers broke the news: the biggest beneficiaries of these internal and external collusion to extort compensation from innocent sellers are actually rogue law firms in the United States. Generally speaking, the distribution ratio of the total compensation is high in the United States. For example, eight to two law firms get eight points! In other words, these unscrupulous merchants collude with overseas rogue law firms, then maliciously blackmail innocent compatriots, and finally hand over their hard-earned money to their American rogue law firm opponents!

In order to further understand the ins and outs of such incidents, the president of an industry association and lawyer China made an in-depth investigation, and the results of the investigation surprised the Chinese people! In the rogue law firm in the United States, there are even China people involved in such incidents! According to relevant data, the Chinese went to a third-rate school in the United States to study law after graduating from undergraduate studies in China, and opened a law firm in the United States after graduation, and falsely enthusiastically advised his classmates to reconcile. It is such a China lawyer who colluded with law school students and caused a sensation in the domestic electric business circle!

However, this long-planned vicious incident has also taught sellers in the whole cross-border e-commerce circle a lesson, making more people realize that even for the protection of intellectual property rights, there are still loopholes, and under the legal protection of rights, there are still chaos. Therefore, as an honest cross-border e-commerce, it is an inevitable prerequisite for sustainable development to improve the awareness of self-brand protection and intellectual property vigilance!

These innocent victims can be said to be grasshoppers in the same boat. They must help each other, actively respond to the lawsuit, and argue with malicious prosecution. At the same time, relevant state departments and third-party service platforms should complete relevant laws and regulations, vigorously safeguard intellectual property rights at home and abroad, and benefit all cross-border industries. I also hope that all cross-border e-commerce sellers can unite and strive to curb the expansion of unfavorable factors and jointly build a healthy and beneficial e-commerce operating environment!

However, there is also good news here. Recently, the industry has cracked down on rogue law firms like the United States to a certain extent. China’s cross-border e-commerce won the first victory in the lawsuit against overseas “phishing law firms”, which also made countless cross-border e-commerce sellers who suffered greatly see the light of fairness and justice!

At the end, friends who read this article, whether they are foreign traders, cross-border practitioners or your family and friends, are in a dilemma in this field. I hope you can actively forward and spread this article, and hope that more and more people can learn from it, fully understand the two or three things in the cross-border circle, and denounce this bad behavior of deceiving compatriots! I wish the electric business circle can develop healthily!