Recently the UK Intellectual Property Office has published a very useful guide, for the sellers of products through the most popular marketplaces such as Amazon, Alibabà, Ebay, Facebook.
The guide is not only for English public but for anyone, wherever located, who has already experienced episodes of online counterfeiting or, or, although not being a victim of counterfeiting, for who would like to know what to do if fake products are passed off as original and sold on the main ecommerce platforms.
Many of the most known ecommerce platforms have developed specific protection tools, which allow trademark owners to promptly report counterfeits and obtain their removals from the platforms.
Let’s see in detail how to do in the online stores: we invite you to see the guide for more information.
Alibaba
If you are a trademark owner and you wish to report a counterfeit to Alibaba, you can do it by using Alibaba Intellectual Property Group Platform (IPP).
First of all, you need to create an account on the IPP Platform with your email address, then you have to provide evidences of your identity and of the ownership of the industrial property rights claimed to be violated. Once these formalities have been completed, the counterfeits can be reported to the platform, which will remove them by notifying the owner of the infringed trademark of the deletion.
Amazon
Also Amazon provides industrial property rights holders with a quick counterfeiting reporting system, namely Amazon Brand Registry tool.
Registration is free and there are more than 350.000 trademarks are already monitored in the register. A team of investigators is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, respond to infringements reports. The platforms gives very encouraging data on how this tool works: on average, brands on the register have reported a 99% reduction in episodes of suspected counterfeiting since the tool was launched.
The registration in the Brand Registry Tool asks the existence of a filed or registered trademark. On the Amazon website is said that registered trademarks of the following territories are accepted: United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, Spain , Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Sweden, European Union, United Arab Emirates.
If the trademark to be registered in the Registry Tool brand is an international trademark, the number assigned by the national trademark office must also be reported, if it does not coincide with the international number.
Even in the lack of an Amazon brand Registry user account, it is possible to report alleged counterfeits through a specific form provided by Amazon
e-Bay
“Verified Rights Owners (VeRO) programme” is the name of the tool provided by e-Bay to fight counterfeiting.
This tool allows intellectual property right holders to report advertisements infringing their rights.
More specifically, it is possible to report alleged violations by sending the Notification of Alleged Violation to the VeRO program, after registration. The violation report is sent via as declared violation notice form (NOCI), sent by e-mail to the address vero@ebay.co.uk
Also Facebook provides a special form which can be used by the holders of industrial property rights to report violations of their rights occurred on the platform.
In addition, Facebook has an additional tool, named “RIGHTS MANAGER”, through which the owner of a copyright can identify and stop content in violation of its rights, simply by uploading audio and video files which are then scanned to track them on the platform.
IN order to meet the needs of registered trademark owners, Facebook provides another tool, namely “COMMERCE AND ADS IP TOOL”, which allows the, to track and report the use of their trademark in violation of their rights. Also in this case, in order to use the services, it is necessary the registration by filling out the appropriate form.
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