Many sellers from around the world use the Marketplace on Amazon.de to sell their products to customers in Germany and neighbouring countries. Apart from general requirements for selling products via the internet like trademark, patent, design and copyright issues there are also specific requirements in Germany (e.g. in regard to labelling rules, information obligations etc.), which can cause problems in unfair competition law (e.g. due to wrong or missing information or labelling). Therefore, lots of sellers are often confronted by all kind of supposed or actual infringements, which e.g. concern violations of trademarks, copyright, designs or even patents or utilty models.
Through the search tool on Amazon it is easy to find potential infringements on this popular marketplace. If such a violation has been discovered, one may try to stop this and legal problems may occur with often (previously) unknown parties.
In Germany a normal proceeding in such a matter would be as follows:
- The affected person or company (e.g. owner of an IP right like a patent, design, trademark or copyright, or a competitor) engages a (specialised) German lawyer e.g. for intellectual property law / patent attorney to check if there is really a violation.
- If the lawyer comes to the result that there is a violation and the concerned person or company wants to proceed, he may draft a warning letter / written notice (German: „Abmahnung“) for the Amazon seller and sends it to the infringer via mail, fax or email. Furthermore, he sets him a deadline for the reaction / reply until he has to cease the infringing behavior and also has to sign a cease-and-desist declaration / declaration of discontinuance (German: „Unterlassungserklärung“ or „Unterlassungs- und Verpflichtungserklärung) to avoid further violations.
- Parallel to this letter the nominated lawyer or the acting person or company may contact Amazon to suspend the concerned offer / ASIN, which can lead to severe consequences for the affected person.
- Normally the addressed Amazon seller engages an own lawyer – which costs money but is generally recommendable – to check the accusations.
- If the concerned Amazon Marketplace seller does not react (properly) the normal next step would be a court proceeding, which would be: ► An interim injuction / temporary injunction / preliminary injunction / restraining order (German: „einstweilige Verfügung“) if specific requirements in regard to deadlines are met. In this case a court normally decides within days and without hearing the opponent. Or ► A law suit / principal proceeding which may take months until there is a final decision.
In case of court proceedings and also in cases of warning letters the opponent regularly has to pay the court and legal fees if the accusation of infringement is true.
We are a specialized intellectual property law firm with a German Certified IP Lawyer and a German and European Patent Attorney and offer various services in relation to (potential) problems and issues on the Amazon.de Marketplace and are representing both sellers and right holders and assist them with legal issues on the platform. These are e.g. the following:
- Checking potential violations of intellectual property / IP rights (e.g. patents, designs, trademarks, copyright) or from unfair competition law (e.g. misleading advertising, insufficient labelling)
- Help you with product suspensions on Amazon.de / ASIN suspensions in Germany e.g. to apply for the suspension of a violating offer or product or to assist to reinstate your seller account and to get the product back in the listing after a “notice / policy warning“ from Amazon
- Handling of warning letters
- Representation in court procedings (e.g. interim injunctions, law suits)
- Amazon Brand Registry in Germany (in regard to German trademark registrations or Uniontrademark registrations / EU trademark registrations)
Feel free to contact us should you require further information or our assistance in regard to legal issues on the Amazon marketplace in Germany.
Especially where standardized procedures are concerned, we offer competitive flat fees for our services.