Fighting Threatening VORYS Letters – How We Handle Potential Lawsuit Claims Against Amazon Sellers
https://youtu.be/KS4EBj4u1Ig
We deal with countless intellectual property right complaints & specifically, with a law firm called Vorys that writes threatening letters when you’re selling their clients’ products.
Amazon sellers, you don’t have to take this nonsense from brands, large or small. You have rights.
What you need to know about Vorys: they rarely make a complaint through brand registry.
So the risk of your account / listings going down is nowhere near that to companies that use brand registry or send IP complaints through Amazon’s take down mechanism.
However, Vorys will threaten to take you to court and/or sue.
Years ago, I’d tell AMZ sellers to take the Vorys letter, roll it up & throw it in the garbage. We can’t tell you that anymore because they actually have started litigation.
If you receive a Vorys letter, you have a few choices:
1: Stop selling. Often Vorys will make a deal that you can sell out of your inventory first & then stop & they won’t sue you.
2: Keep selling. In most cases, they won’t file a lawsuit but you never know whether yours will involve litigation.
3: Go at them with nuclear weapons & take them to court for threatening you. Seek a declaratory action.
Do a risk vs. reward analysis. How much $$$ are you making from the product? What portion of your biz is that product line?
If the risk is big & profit small, walk away. Usually the risk of getting sued is small but if you’re not making $$$ on the product who needs aggravation of potential litigation?
If you’re making a lot of $$$ on the product, you could do a declaratory judgment action where you go to court & say, “Dear judge, they’ve accused me of… I want a ruling now to see whether or not they’re right or wrong.” That’s being aggressive. Most sellers won’t take that step, but be aware that it exists.