Cross-border e-commerce intellectual property series (2)

Cross-border e-commerce intellectual property infringement cases in the United States

Case 1:

A seller in Wenzhou sold lighters on AliExpress. The team from GBC Law Firm pretended to be a customer from Illinois to purchase the goods involved. In order to facilitate transfers, the seller was asked to provide his PayPal account name, while retaining web page screenshots, links, sales Records, chat records, etc. as evidence. Then GBC Law Firm went to the Northern Illinois Court to sue the seller for infringing the client's trademark rights, and applied for a temporary injunction (TRO) to freeze the seller's Paypal account, which contained ten to twenty thousand dollars.

After receiving the GBC lawyer's letter and the court's email notification, the seller considered that the cost of responding was too high and was simply unbearable for small sellers. After comprehensive consideration, the seller finally chose to give up responding to the lawsuit. After the 21-day period expired, the court issued a default judgment order, the funds frozen in the Paypal account were awarded to the plaintiff as compensation, and the AliExpress store was permanently closed.

Case 2:

A company in Hangzhou sells bicycle accessories on Amazon, eBay, AliExpress and other platforms. Among them, a pair of outdoor sports glasses purchased from a company in Yiwu were sued by an American company in the Northern Illinois Court in the first half of the year, claiming that the glasses infringed its rights. Regarding the design patent rights, we applied to the court for a pre-litigation injunction, which froze the company's stores and payment accounts. After the expiration, we applied for property preservation and continued to freeze the stores and payment accounts, which had a great impact on the company's normal operations. .

It is understood that the sales volume of the glasses in the United States is very small, with a total of only a few hundred pairs, with sales of about 20,000 US dollars, and a payment account balance of 10,000 to 20,000 US dollars. However, the store has been operating for a long time and has a certain customer base, and the company does not want to give up. After the incident, the seller hired an American lawyer to actively respond to the lawsuit and negotiated with the other party while fighting. In the end, the company reached a settlement of US$50,000 with the US company.

Case 3:

Since 2006, Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai international student, has asked relatives and friends in Thailand to buy nearly 500 teaching materials, and then sold them to American students in his online store on eBay, starting a cross-border small business. E-commerce. In two years, Keshan's sales reached one million US dollars, and he also made a small profit of 100,000 US dollars, which was enough to subsidize the cost of studying for a PhD in mathematics at the University of Southern California. However, due to its sales on eBay, the publishing giant John Wiley & Sons Inc., a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, finally sued the New York District Court for copyright infringement and demanded huge compensation. The lawsuit eventually went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Why is selling genuine books infringing upon copyright infringement? It turns out that the textbook Keshaan sold on eBay was published in Thailand by an overseas branch of Wiley, but a written announcement stated that the book was only for sale in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Owners of intellectual property rights such as copyrights, trademarks, and patents always hope that the market will be strictly segmented. They can sell the same goods at different sales prices based on the market and consumption levels of each country, and have exclusive attributes in the country of registration. Intellectual property rights such as copyrights, trademarks, and patents are often regarded by rights holders as the basis for preventing the inflow of goods.

Case 4:

The self-balancing scooter, which was once a hot spot in China's foreign trade, once had more than 10 million units sold on e-commerce platforms. But overnight, all infringing Chinese sellers’ products were removed from the shelves. More than 100 balancing scooter products were illegally sold, involving about 400 million U.S. dollars. More than 200 million U.S. dollars were frozen due to intellectual property infringement. Related foreign trade companies and The foreign trade factory was unable to operate normally due to the balancing car incident, which cost more than 500 million yuan, directly or indirectly affecting more than 100,000 foreign trade industry practitioners.