AMAZON SELLERS LAWYER SUCCESS: We recently helped a suspended Amazon seller get reinstated after they received a 72 hour suspension notice for 18 intellectual property complaints.
Our client had received various complaints: trademark, copyright and patent. What this means is that the seller had 72 hours to submit an appeal to Amazon.
In general, a trademark indicates to a potential seller that they are receiving quality goods up to the standards that the company owning the trademark sets. A trademark also serves the purpose of distinguishing the creator’s goods from another’s. Trademarking can legally protect a seller from an individual using their trademark to illegally sell similar products, which would give the consumer the mistaken advice that they are receiving a product of the quality of the trademark owner.
Counterfeit complaints are a type of trademark complaint. Most counterfeit complaints are baseless; most sellers do not sell counterfeit goods. If you are selling genuine products, there is likely no basis for the complaint.
Copyright infringement is violating an owner’s exclusive rights to a work of art, granted by the Federal Copyright Act, by the use of protected works without permission. The use of copyrighted works is unauthorized unless consent is given by the owner. To demonstrate a valid copyright infringement claim, a plaintiff must show ownership of a copyright and show that the defendant has copied elements of the work that are original.
A patent is a license issued by the government. The license states that the one with the patent is the only person allowed to sell the product. This license can apply to specific technology, design, or to an entire product. There are two types of patents that are usually an issue on the Amazon platform: utility patents and design patents.
We reviewed all of the suspended ASINs that Amazon had provided to our client. It turned out that many of the ASINs that had already received retractions; they had already been appealed to the notice-dispute team and reinstated by Amazon. However, these ASINs were still on the list of IP complaints.
Oftentimes, when you have a listing reinstated that resulted from an intellectual property complaint, it will remain on your account health. Amazon does not remove intellectual property complaints from your account health right away; it can take up to 180 days to be removed.
We then drafted our plan of action. Writing a plan of action is nothing more than an exercise in persuasive writing; a seller needs to persuade the Amazon employee who is reading the plan to reinstate their account. When drafting a plan of action, the seller should focus on being thorough and succinct. The Amazon employees who are reviewing the plan of action often have a very limited amount of time to review an appeal.
In our plan of action for the 72 Hour Performance Notification, we included the correspondence between the attorneys at Rosenbaum Famularo, PC and the complainant, as well as the proof of authenticity for the invoices and the notification from Amazon that stated that these ASINs were reinstated.
Our client’s account was reinstated and the 72 hour performance notification was removed.