How to Fight Amazon Rights Infringement Claims

This post is by Chris McCabe, founder of ecommerceChris.com, with Amazon FBA seller and attorney Suzi Hixon.

Chris McCabe’s first post on this topic was Bogus Amazon Infringement Claims: Copyright, Trademarks and Patents.

The incidence of rights infringement claims at Amazon spiked upward recently, as many parties have realized how easily this can be abused to remove unwanted sellers from a desired listing.

In fact, Amazon’s policy teams have moved much more aggressively to suspend sellers, instead of warning them and removing the ASIN in question from their listings.

The net result of these actions is to drive up the number of suspended account appeals. These appeals require Plans of Action to address not only how you’ll resolve the current dispute with the claimant, but also how you’ll avoid such rights infringement cases in the future.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the increased friction around notice claims has resulted in new methods to prevent notice abuse. Amazon is now taking this subject very seriously and no abuse of Amazon’s systems or policies will be tolerated going forward.

Amazon rights infringement claims: a recap

The past notice process led sellers to contact rights’ owners via email asking for a retraction or attempting to resolve the dispute, then asking that party to contact Amazon directly. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t. Either way, you had little hope of hearing from the claimant due to their lack of incentive to “help” you with your Amazon problems. Their intended goal was to drive you off the listing and perhaps even get you suspended, and it worked like a charm. Why should they play ball with you now?

Often the only recourse in these situations was to remove all such inventory and declare that you’d never again list or sell those items, while also submitting a Plan of Action. Given the inconsistency of Amazon’s internal processes and varying degrees of Standard Operating Procedure enforcement by investigators, sometimes this worked, and sometimes it didn’t.

In recent conversations with sellers and various internal Amazon contacts, I have discovered more about the new team assembled to handle reports of such abuse. Reports of abuse by false claimants, and counter notices, will be assessed and acted upon when sellers give proper documentation. Patterns of abuse, such as repeated false claims from active sellers, will likely result in account closure. From what I’ve heard, they’ll be laying down the law shortly.

Time will tell if these new actions will improve the lot of sellers coping with false claims. The status quo methods of referring sellers to the rights owner, and standing entirely back from the fray, should be coming to an end as suspended sellers demand more attention to the complainant themselves – and the nature of their allegations.

In the old days…

The process of vetting infringement forms always appeared shaky, even back during my days at Amazon. How could an entity that looked like little more than a free email address and a hastily filled-out complaint result in warnings and removals out of the blue?

As policy enforcers, our options were limited. We had to act on the forms to prevent accusations of a failure to protect right’s owners, and we had to limit Amazon’s liability from the damages associated with that failure. Beyond that, we had no obligation to research who had what rights out there in the world. That was your responsibility as a seller, and you had the court system available to you if you wanted to litigate it with the claimant.

But what if you can’t even tell who the claimant is? Amazon only gives you an email address, in some cases. You could hire an IP attorney to write a letter and submit it on their law firm’s letterhead to generate a response, but who knows if that will even provoke a reaction?

In the future, your previously bleak options will become real and productive ones, with the use of the counter notice process, explained in detail below. Now, Amazon will have to take seriously your dispute over the validity of the form they’ve received. Did they act on on a false infringement form that could have been vetted and disregarded? Also, did Amazon suspend your account based on one or more false infringement claims? Were damages incurred?

What if you’re suspended for notices?

You won’t have much time to work with right’s owners (through your attorney) to resolve legal disputes if Amazon has suspended you.

The filers of the forms know this, and it’s one reason why these tools are so effective for them. They know that reporting you for multiple listings within a tight timeframe could easily mean a month-long suspension, or longer, depending on the strength (or weakness) of your Plan of Action.

Will it be enough to show Amazon, through FBA removal orders and listing deletions, that you’ve successfully resolved the matter, and won’t list or sell those products again? You’ll need a solid Plan of Action with a convincing method that specifies your capabilities for future avoidance. Care must be taken to lay out preventive steps that will eliminate their need to warn or suspend you for this from now on.

These days, with hundreds (if not thousands) of claims coming in every week, the last thing Amazon wants is to enforce infringement claims over and over on the same sellers. If Amazon must keep reviewing your account while killing your listings and sending you warnings, then you’re considered more trouble than you’re worth.

How to create a Plan of Action

Write an appeal that demonstrates the action items below. At minimum:

  1. You’ve retained professional legal advice not only to protect yourself, but to prevent future possible violations.
  2. All items you sell are vetted and documented prior to listing them, to ensure that the brand will not come after you for selling it on Amazon.com.
  3. You’ve immediately removed offending items when contacted by the right’s owner or brand, upon verifying that their claims are legitimate, to resolve the dispute.
  4. Indicate that you are going over ALL listings with your IP attorney to ensure that nothing will violate another party’s rights when you sell it.

In other words, talk about adherence to compliance, and show that you understand your place in the reseller universe. If the brand comes calling and files notices with Amazon, you can’t run and hide. You need to address it head-on.

But before thinking of the viability of a Plan of Action you may not need to write, yet, let’s talk solutions and first steps. What should you do when you get one of these and when should you counter?

Once again, I spoke to Suzi Hixon, about how Amazon sellers need to react when confronting such right’s owner claims.

As an IP attorney, Suzi suggests that you:

  • First attempt to reach out to the right’s owner for an explanation of the allegations. Even if you’ve received a baseless notice and your account has not been suspended, do not ignore the letter.
  • It’s wise to reach out to the complainant politely. Don’t get angry and defensive, and certainly do not send accusatory or threatening letters to other parties or their attorneys. Also, don’t assume that you know what the basis for the IP rights infringement is.
  • In many circumstances, the right’s owner is enforcing IP rights that you might not even be aware of. Tell the alleged rights’ owner that you strive to respect other’s intellectual property, and that you are writing to them to determine the basis of their claim. Ask them to substantiate their claims, including any registration numbers upon which the claims are based.
  • Oftentimes, the right’s owner (or their agent) will explain to you the basis of the allegations, and may encourage you to retain your own attorney going forward. They may or may not agree to retract the complaint pending your removal of any infringing material. They may ignore you entirely.

Unfortunately, however, we are seeing more and more situations on Amazon where sellers are submitting false or unsubstantiated intellectual property rights infringement claims to intimidate and damage competitors. What do you do when you receive an allegation of intellectual property (IP) rights infringement from Amazon when the allegation is false or unsubstantiated?

You can consider filing a “DMCA counterclaim” (“counterclaim” or “counter notice”) to Amazon.

Please note: filing a DMCA counterclaim can have serious legal ramifications. Seek the advice of an attorney who can help guide you through determining whether the IP rights allegedly owned by a complainant can be substantiated.

What is a DMCA counterclaim?

An intellectual property rights holder may submit to a service provider (e.g., Amazon) a “takedown demand of allegedly infringing material.” The provider will then remove the allegedly infringing content, and it must then notify the alleged infringer. This is what happens usually when you’ve received a “notice” from Amazon.

The alleged infringer (i.e., the recipient of the notice) then has the opportunity to file a DMCA counterclaim in which they contest the claim of infringement. The provider should then forward the counterclaim to the initial complainant. Unless the complainant files an action seeking a court order against the alleged infringer, the provider should reinstate the material within 10 to 14 business days after receiving the counter notice.

In other words, with a DMCA counterclaim, you are telling the alleged right’s owner to put up, or shut up.

How do you do file a DMCA counterclaim?

First, try to determine the status of the underlying intellectual property rights that are allegedly being infringed. Again, we’re seeing lots of issues on Amazon where sellers are touting rights they do not have. You’ll need to reach out to the alleged rights’ holder or their agents, if possible, as discussed above.

Second, make sure you are confident that you are not infringing the alleged rights holder’s intellectual property. Hopefully, the complainant or their attorney will respond to you with the basis of their allegation. You might want to have your own attorney cross-check the validity of this.

Third, as long as you are not infringing the complainant’s IP rights, prepare your counter notice to Amazon.

Note: the DMCA creates liability for knowingly making false claims in a DMCA takedown notice or counter notice. If the alleged rights holder (complainant) has a solid infringement claim, sending a DMCA may trigger a lawsuit. Proceed with caution!

You’ll need to provide a legal signature, your full name and contact information, an identification of the material that’s been taken down and where it appeared before it was removed, and a statement made under penalty of perjury that you have a “good faith belief” the material was removed by mistake or misidentification.

If you misrepresent that material is not infringing, you may be liable for damages (including costs and attorney fees). Again, if you are not sure whether or not the material is infringing, you should contact an attorney before submitting a counter notice to Amazon. This can be a complex matter with legal ramifications. I cannot stress enough here how important it is to proceed with caution.

You will also need to indicate your consent to the jurisdiction of a federal court in the district where you live (if you reside in the US), and you must provide your consent to accept service of process from whomever submitted the takedown notice, or that party’s agent.

At this point, the complainant should receive a copy of the counter notice from Amazon. If the complainant does not provide to Amazon, within 14 days, that a lawsuit has been filed, your content should then be reinstated.

Again, filing a DMCA counterclaim can have serious legal consequences, on and off the Amazon platform. In fact, it could trigger a lawsuit. Be sure you have a good faith belief that the removal was the result of a misidentification or an error, and consider retaining an attorney to help you.

This information is not legal advice. You are responsible for any use of this information. You should retain competent legal counsel if you have any questions.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel

So Amazon will be more responsive to abuse of the rights infringement notice process AND you can make use of counter notices, in the proper circumstances, to defend yourself against false claims.

It’s unclear how long all of this might take, but Amazon may be moving things in the right direction at long last.

They understand the nature of the problem and from what we hear, they’re turning their attention towards adequate solutions.

Chris McCabe of ecommerceChris shows sellers how to keep their accounts healthy, or, if the worst should happen, how to get their account back from a suspension.

Suzi Hixon has practiced intellectual property law for over 15 years, and has her own Amazon-based private label brand.

Author

Jake Pool

Jake Pool

A content writer in the SaaS, FinTech, and eCommerce spaces, Jake Pool has written hundreds of articles and reviews for dozens of corporate blogs and online publications. With four years under his wing, readers can expect many more informative articles in the future.

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Comments

Lynne Norris
Lynne Norris

So, how does a nerw seller go about getting approval to sell items? Surely you cant just email them and say, can I put your stuff on my store?Ive been blocked from selling a $12 item from WM because another seller complained. He only had 2 items listed and he most certainly isnt the brand owner of Mainstays! I want to dropship. I dont have the money or the space to do FBA or MF. But I want to do it right. Thanks.

Tyler Nelson
Tyler Nelson
In reply to Tyler Nelson

Lynne, dropshipping from Walmart breaks the TOD

Lynne Norris
Lynne Norris
In reply to Lynne Norris

I have not seen WM mentioned specifically, but basically, if you read Amazon's dropshipping terms, dropshipping in it's true sense is not allowed at all. It states that you must be the seller of record (which in my case, I was), so you are actually doing Merchant Fulfilled, not dropshipping. So, if you own the product and you are being upfront about the condition, etc., why do they care that it came from WM? millions are being sold every day from Amazon with WM items. From all kinds of apparently unauthorized sellers, if what you say is correct.

Josh
Josh

Any advice? I had an Intellectual Property Rights Infringement claim. I went all the way up the chain to get rejected by Bezos team. Afterwards the rights holder released claim. Seller performance is still not releasing my suspended account even after withdrawal of claim and several emails. Advice?!

Thanks!

Todd
Todd

Manufacturers are paying attorneys to rewrite MAP policies to turn a MAP "violation" into an IP complaint. They do this to get around the First Sales Doctrine, and control who can sell their product on Amazon. They also refuse to honor warranties and then claim you can't sell items as new because they won't honor a warranty, which is illegal in many states.

They do all this to control prices.

Lawsuits can be expensive, but I am tired of some manufacturers trying to circumvent the First Sales Doctrine with these bully tactics against legitimate sellers.

Lynne Norris
Lynne Norris
In reply to Lynne Norris

So, what can we do? There has to be something.

Pharaoh Bee
Pharaoh Bee

How about a case where an idea you came up to and created a new design our of it, no copyrights yet, no trademarks via uspto.gov dated March 15; After 2 weeks (April 1), suddenly you received a claim that they own the design that you have made. Can we prevent such things to happen like that?

It's a risk of having your account to be suspended in the future. It's saddening that there are seedlings of Martin Shkreli everywhere on the market, who thinks they own everything and only they own anything even though you came up to creating your own design / idea.

How do we prevent these things to happen?

Juliana Farha
Juliana Farha

As a rights owner, I find all of this quite galling. We are a manufacturer and we do not sell on Amazon ourselves. But Amazon is completely saturated with cheap Asian-made copies of our products which infringe our longstanding US trade dress registrations and we want them removed. We are not trying to shut down any legitimate seller and our claims are not false. We have had virtually no help from Amazon at all, yet this piece refers to their new focus on shutting down false claims.

Why are they not committing resources to ensuring that their site doesn't become an online dollar store, full of cheap copies of legitimate brands? Instead, small family-run businesses like ours are obligated to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees each year dealing with Amazon's laissez faire approach to its own Terms and Conditions. In fact, Birkenstock pulled all of their products from Amazon for this reason. As a consumer, I am now very wary of shopping on Amazon because I no longer trust what I'm seeing there.

Ahmed
Ahmed

One of my listing s was removed due to a false claims. The claimant used an expired patent number on top of that! I have been sending counter DMCA noticed to Amazon but they keep ignoring by asking me to resolve with the claimant. The claimant is not responding to my emails. What should I do now?

Chris Angelo
Chris Angelo
In reply to Chris Angelo

I'm in the exact situation

Chris McCabe
Chris McCabe

You'll want to remedy any Notice-related situation quickly -- you received too many and now you're suspended? They'll want to know in your POA how you plan to avoid them in the future while also watching you address and resolve past notices. Make sure you have both -- otherwise, they often spin you in circles.

E-Deals Store Services Ltd
E-Deals Store Services Ltd

We are the first company may be on UK that will be claiming damages against an Amazon Seller for an unlawful threat of notice of infringement.

Chris McCabe
Chris McCabe

I know a lot of us will be interested in hearing the outcome of that, this is a lawsuit filed in the UK? What are the prospects of recovering lost funds or damages in the UK from a false rights owner infringement like this?

Let us know what you can divulge publicly. Curious to hear more.

Liz
Liz

This is an ongoing issue and I cannot see why some of the following simple policy changes at Amazon's end which would work in the interests of all parties (including Amazon) could not be made:

1. A complaint form that requires full contact details: personal and business; company registration details and the registered office/place of business address; legal representatives or an agents contact details of the same type required to be given of the complainant; IP registration certificates; brief details on the alleged violation and supporting IP documents showing how the product violates the IP rights - all of which is to accompany the form.

2. If the form is incomplete or the application doesn't have the required accompanying documents then Amazons TOS can make it clear that they wont process it/accept it until it complies with their TOS and wont be held liable for any losses until it does so comply.

3. Amend TOS to state that any complaint process that is instigated for any purpose other than in pursuit of a legitimate IP complaint and claim will result in closure of the lodging parties account and a complaint to federal authorities for investigation. ie fraud - obtaining a financial advantage by deception etc.

4. The form should be signed and or lodged by a lawyer.

5. This puts the onus on the lodging party or complainant. If it is a legitimate complaint and concern, you can be sure that a seller will go to these lengths anyhow and make sure all i's are dotted and has sought legal advice.

That should greatly reduce claims that are false or not valid and should also cut down Amazon's processing time. It protects all parties, including Amazon I would think.

Chris McCabe
Chris McCabe

Hi Liz, you make some excellent points here especially in terms of Notice form enhancement, #1. For #2 is already pretty much the case.

In the case of #3, they should probably review the TOS but make changes to that very sparingly. They are handling it with the Notice-Dispute teams, in terms of potential penalties.

#4 will never happen, they need to keep things open legally so that anyone can defend their brand or legal rights, with or without an attorney.

They are looking to minimize their legal liability yet do what they need to do when reports come in alleging such infringements, so Amazon's first concern is exposure, and speedy processing so that they cannot be sued for damages around rights owner infringement. Thanks for the comments.

Andrew Vougazianos
Andrew Vougazianos

As an artist, I found some of my work stolen and sold on Amazon for profit without my approval. I sent a DMCA take down notice and the art was after a week or so taken down. Two weeks later I get a counter notice from the theif claiming it was wrongly taken down and that infact the art was theirs. Now I am expected within 10 days to file a law suit which could cost god knows how much money against someone who probably put down fake details to start with. When I checked out the persons address they gave, it does not exist. It was somewhere in China even though they state they are a US citizen. What? Unlike other websites where I have taken down my stolen art work, Amazon do not even ask for proof of ownership from either party. It's no wonder art crime is so ripe as they work for the theives, not the artist as the art work will be reinstated in 10 days if I do not sue. What a joke. They probably want the art work back up as they make a cut from every sale made. It's day light robbery of my hard work for someone else to benefit from. I'm a small independant business and things like these silly big company laws devestate me. There is nothing worse than seeing your art work sold for profit from an unknown and Amazon are pretty much saying, stuff you, spend thousands on a lawyer or shut up and let the theives keep on selling your art. Any advise would be more than welcome as I only received this counter notice today. Thanks.

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