Don’t you know about these intellectual property infringement problems?

As we all know, the infringement of intellectual property rights is a minefield in the whole domestic and international electric business circle, especially in today’s society, the protection of intellectual property rights is becoming more and more important, and intellectual property infringement cases are also emerging one after another. In order to provide quality services and content to the majority of e-commerce sellers, Maijia Support made a detailed introduction on the infringement of intellectual property rights.

Recently, a new seller of the AliExpress platform was unfortunately recruited. After receiving the infringement notice, he was helpless and anxious to find a solution in all parties. The user said:

“I received a notice from PayPal today, and our store was sued for infringement by the US court. The infringing product is a decorative painting, which was sold once, with a value of about 5 dollars. This product has been off the shelf for more than 2 months because of the fear of infringement. At present, Paypal is to limit my account, and there is $20 in the account. “

The seller also specifically pointed out: “The cause is presumed to be fishing. A few months ago, a person came to make an inquiry and said that he wanted to buy a number of products for $100. Among them, he named this infringing product. In the end, he did not buy it and could not contact him. “

In fact, it is not difficult to see from the seller’s introduction that there is something strange in this series of actions from the sudden inquiry to the final receipt of the notice of infringement, and the seller’s negligence lies in his low sensitivity to intellectual property protection. How should this situation be solved, or how to improve the prevention of infringement before this? The following small series will explain in detail for the sellers.

Definition of intellectual property infringement Intellectual property rules: According to the definition of AliExpress official platform, intellectual property rules refer to the protection of intellectual property rights of all sellers, thus restricting any seller from selling unauthorized products. Generally speaking, if an e-commerce seller publishes and sells goods suspected of infringing third-party intellectual property rights or has similar information, it may be complained or even initiated by the owner of intellectual property rights or the authorized seller. At the same time, the platform also has the ability of self-inspection, and random checks will be conducted from time to time. The scope of random checks includes products on sale and off the shelf, product information and so on. Once a commodity is found to be suspected of infringement, the commodity information will be forcibly returned or deleted.

Classification of infringement: Trademark infringement: Trademark infringement is the most common infringement problem, especially for some internationally renowned brands. For example, big brands such as Chanel and LV, or famous brands such as Marvel Comics, Disney and Baokemeng. If the appearance and design of the goods on sale are similar to well-known brands, or the content of the goods is very similar to the related cartoon images, infringement will also be involved, and this type of punishment is extremely serious. Therefore, Xiao Bian reminds sellers to pay attention to the prevention and evasion of related problems, and can pay more attention to some related cases so as not to touch the same infringing minefield.

Image infringement: Image infringement mainly refers to stealing or imitating other people’s original images. To a certain extent, for the self-inspection of AliExpress platform, the existence of similar image platforms in the early stage of operation will not deduct points from the sellers, but if the infringement problem is serious or the similarity and similarity frequency of images are too high, the platform will also not show mercy. Patent infringement: In general, patent infringement is aimed at some high-tech products, such as household appliances and professional equipment, which not only have appearance patents, but also attach great importance to technology patents. For this point, it is very necessary for sellers to judge this by their long-term business experience. Therefore, Xiao Bian suggested that if they are new partners in the e-commerce industry, they should not easily collect imitations. However, if necessary, they can make inquiries through international trademarks and patents. Punishment for infringement: Different platforms also have different punishments for intellectual property infringement. Take the rules of AliExpress platform as an example: For serious cases of intellectual property infringement, the defendant seller has only one opportunity to appeal, but if the appeal is unsuccessful, the account may be directly closed.

At the same time, the platform also clearly pointed out that: intellectual property rights are prohibited and restricted, trading violations and other stores with 48 points or more will be closed; Accounts with 12 points or multiples of 12 points for violation of commodity information quality will be frozen for 7 days; The three sets of points system deduct points, accumulate points and impose penalties respectively.

To sum up the above contents, it is the following three treatment methods:

The final result of unsuccessful appeal is to directly freeze the account number and account funds. Under normal circumstances, the principle of deduction is mainly adopted, and minor infringement will not be deducted. The maximum penalty for a single item is 48 points, and if it exceeds the maximum limit, the store will be forced to close. At the same time, it should also be noted that every six or twelve points are deducted, the platform will restrict the operation of the store, and this will not be underestimated on the weight of the store. Avoidance of Trademark Infringement from Intellectual Property Infringement: As mentioned earlier, the punishment for trademark infringement is the most severe, so this aspect needs the attention of all sellers. As for the specific circumvention methods, Xiao Bian suggested that sellers should be more alert to brand imitation. Of course, the premise is to have an understanding of the appearance, image and trademark of internationally renowned brands, and never realize the importance of prevention until you receive the litigation email. Image infringement: Relatively speaking, the crisis of image infringement is the biggest, so Xiaobian has compiled the following points, which need the seller’s special attention. Avoid goods with obvious pattern design style, especially for clothing. If the complained picture is infringing, you must choose to complain. If conditions permit, the seller can first find as many suppliers as possible, and ask them if they can improve the original drawings. If they get the original drawings, they will immediately bring the original drawings to appeal. However, if the source of the original picture is really unavailable or the supplier is unwilling to provide the original picture, in this case, we can only take a few similar pictures by ourselves, and then take the taken pictures to prove it on the infringement page. However, it should be noted that we must be sincere when giving evidence, such as attaching words of apology when uploading pictures, and saying that this kind of phenomenon will not happen again in the future.

Patent Infringement: Because patent infringement is mainly aimed at goods with high technical requirements, if you want to avoid the occurrence of patent infringement, you need the seller to take the initiative to understand and master certain professional knowledge, especially to pay attention to relevant cases and experience sharing in the industry. The above is the current situation of infringement lawsuits faced by cross-border e-commerce sellers in China, which is summarized by Maijia Support. I hope it can bring you reminders and help. If you want to get more information, we will follow up further. Unfortunately, the sellers who have been recruited can also contact us through private messages in WeChat official account, and we will provide you with the best response plan and consulting services for free.