AMAZON ACCOUNT DEACTIVATED DUE TO Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS)
Hello, I’m hoping that someone could help me with the question on hand. My amazon account has been deactivated and I am desperately trying a way to reactivate it. I have unrelated products stranded in amazon inventory which are in full compliance with Amazon guidelines and I would like to continue selling on Amazon. I would really appreciate it if someone from the Amazon team could reply to this post.
To begin with I received the following email from amazon on July 18th.
Hello,
Your account has been temporarily deactivated. Your listings have been removed. Funds will not be transferred to you but will stay in your account while we work with you to address this issue. This could take up to 90 days. Please ship any open orders to avoid further impact to your account.
Why is this happening?
We have not received a valid plan of action addressing the infringement issues below.
Amazon previously alerted you of these issues through warnings on the ASINs below:
B08JS9N4Z7 - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B0933LZ37M - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B092RJMTVX - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B0933MY41T - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B092RKXWXN - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B092RL6XR7 - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS)
How do I reactivate my account?
To reactivate your account, please send us the following information:
– Proof of non-infringement (e.g., invoice, Order ID, letter of authorisation, licensing agreement or court order) for all affected listings.
– The steps you have taken to ensure that you are no longer infringing and will not infringe in the future.
– Other relevant information.
– Supporting details should you believe that the actions were made in error.
After I received this email without much though I answered the following question as this:
Has your account been deactivated in error?
Hello, I believe my account has been wrongly suspended, I have not violated
any trademarks in my listings. The products with the ASIN: B08JS9N4Z7,
ASIN: B0933LZ37M, ASIN: B092RL2CRQ, ASIN: B092RJMTVX, ASIN:
B092RL6XR7, ASIN: B092RKXWXN, ASIN: B0933MY41T are not branded
products and easily accessible to buy through other platforms. These listings
has been removed, and they were in the period where I was new to the
platform and was learning. Currently I can’t understand why my Amazon has
been suspended since I haven’t violated any of Amazon’s rules. I would like to
learn what it is exactly that caused my amazon account to be suspended and
come up with a plan to get my account reinstated as I would like to continue
selling, as I am a seller which will abide by the rules now and in the future.
After this query I received the following reply:
Hello,
Thank you for your message. We cannot accept your appeal because it does not address the infringement issues alerted to you previously for the ASINs below:
– ASIN: B08JS9N4Z7 - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B0933LZ37M - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B092RJMTVX - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B0933MY41T - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B092RKXWXN - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS), B092RL6XR7 - Potential Registered Design Misuse (AIRPODS) - DESIGN RIGHT
Please provide the following information so we can process your appeal:
– Proof of non-infringement (e.g., invoice, Order ID, letter of authorization, licensing agreement or court order) for all affected listings.
– The steps you have taken to ensure that you are no longer infringing and will not infringe in the future.
– Other relevant information.
– Supporting details should you believe that the actions were made in error.
How do I reactivate my listings?
Go to Received Intellectual Property Complaints under the Product Policy Compliance section in account health (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/performance/dashboard?ref=ah_em_mpa) and locate the deactivation record for this product listing. Click on the Appeal button next to the listing deactivation record to submit information necessary to reactivate your listing.
You can view your account performance (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/performance/dashboard?reftag=email_appeal) or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS or Android device. The Account Health dashboard shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on Amazon.
Then I wrote the following appeal:
Dear Amazon UK Seller Performance team,
Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to appeal to the suspension of my seller account due to Suspected Intellectual Property Violations. To start with, I would like to apologise, and state that I’ve distanced myself from all offending ASIN’s.
I fully understand that Amazon takes complaints about Intellectual Property Rights of brands or rights owners very seriously. I would like to share my plan of action, in which I will explain what I’ve done to resolve the issue in hand, and what I will do to prevent such complaints in the future.
What happened:
I received numerous Suspected Intellectual Property Violations in the UK Amazon Marketplace.
The ASIN’s for which you have contacted me are as follows:
�� B0933MY41T ITEM Green Wireless Bluetooth Earphone
• B092RKXWXN ITEM White Wireless Bluetooth Earphone
• B092RL6XR7 ITEM Blue Wireless Bluetooth Earphone
• B092RJMTVX ITEM Pink Wireless Bluetooth Earphone
• B092RL2CRQ ITEM Inpods 12 TWS 5.0 Stereo Wireless Blue tooth Earphone
• B0933LZ37M ITEM Inpods 12 TWS 5.0 Stereo Wireless Bluetooth Earphone (Yellow)
• B08JS9N4Z7 ITEM TWS i12,Pink,Wireless Headphones Fast Charging Headphones IPX5 Waterproof Stereo Earbuds in-Ear Built-in Mic,Bluetooth 5.0 Earbuds
Amazon rightly marked the above ASIN’s as Suspected Intellectual Property Violations. The products with the ASINS B0933MY41T, B092RKXWXN, B092RL6XR7, B092RJMTVX, B092RL2CRQ, B0933LZ37M were listed as Generic Brand products when I was new to then Amazon, on May 21st as visible by my case logs. We listed products in the Amazon catalogue as a Generic Brand products, because we did not have the EAN or Barcode, as these products were bought by our supplier in Asia, which I will provide the invoice for. I do not claim that these products are Apple products in any way. After learning that these products violated Apple’s Design Trademarks, I removed these listings and I stopped selling these products. However, I would like to mention that even prior to learning that these products violated Apple’s trademarks I didn’t sell them under Apple’s name or mentioned Apple in these listings or any other brand, they were listed as generic brand products. And to further learn about this issue, I contacted the Amazon team to learn what I did wrong and opened a case about it to prevent any further issues.
With the ASIN B08JS9N4Z7, I checked that the ASIN belonging to brand name “ XXXXX” in Amazon Germany is not a trademarked brand. I checked the brand name on https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search and https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#basic . The brand name didn’t come up for these products or in general, and since my product is exactly the same as the product listed with this ASIN, I listed my product with it. I would also like to point out I didn’t sell any items under this ASIN and removed the product.
What have I done to address this issue:
I can confirm that all the offending ASIN’s, as listed above have been removed from my store.
I have carefully reviewed my entire Amazon account and Inventory to make sure that all my listings are fully compliant with the Amazon policies and guidelines, and I made sure I am only selling products that I have Letter of Authorization to sell or products that are manufactured by me.
I decided to change my business model to not sell any generic brand products and solely focus on selling products from OWN Brands that I have come to agreements, purchase from directly and have letter of authorization to sell. This practice started after the complaints I received on May 21st and all my listings after this date does not violate any of Amazon’s policies. For example, after this date, I started selling XXXXX Brand products, which are currently stranded in Amazon Inventory which I have receipts, and Letter of Authorization from the Brand itself which I will provide.
What will I do to prevent similar complaints in the future:
From now on, I will only keep working with brands that I purchase from directly, have the receipts and Letter of Authorization to Sell from, with an example I’ve attached below.
I will not sell any products that are Generic Brand unless we ourselves manufacture the products such as String Bracelets that can be found in our Amazon Inventory.
We will ensure that any policy notifications are dealt with as soon as they are received, however with our new business model we don’t expect to receive them and will always have the ability to provide Invoices or Letter of Authorization if we do.
We will thoroughly check all new listings at the brand level prior the listing products to make sure that we do not violate intellectual property rights of others and brands as we have done before. We will check via https://www.gov.uk/search-for-trademark, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search and https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#basic to ensure we are not infringing on the above.
I will keep myself informed by regularly reading the Amazon guidelines and policies to ensure that I am not in violation of any of the rules. I will monitor all changes of the policies and or any applicable laws which could affect my selling account and react proactively.
I trust that this plan will sufficiently address the issues and I hope that you will allow me to continue selling on Amazon.
I also provided amazon with my Letter of Authorisation from other brands I now work with in compliance to Amazon policies and the invoice for the ear phone in question.
However AGAIN I received the same generic reply;
Hello,
Thank you for your message. We cannot accept your appeal because it does not address the infringement issues alerted to you previously for the ASINs below:
– ASIN: B08JS9N4Z7
– ASIN: B0933LZ37M
– ASIN: B092RJMTVX
– ASIN: B0933MY41T
– ASIN: B092RKXWXN
– ASIN: B092RL6XR7
Please provide the following information so we can process your appeal:
– Proof of non-infringement (e.g., invoice, Order ID, letter of authorization, licensing agreement or court order) for all affected listings.
– The steps you have taken to ensure that you are no longer infringing and will not infringe in the future.
– Other relevant information.
– Supporting details should you believe that the actions were made in error.
How do I reactivate my listings?
Go to Received Intellectual Property Complaints under the Product Policy Compliance section in account health (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/performance/dashboard?ref=ah_em_mpa) and locate the deactivation record for this product listing. Click on the Appeal button next to the listing deactivation record to submit information necessary to reactivate your listing.
You can view your account performance (https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/performance/dashboard?reftag=email_appeal) or select Account Health on the home screen of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS or Android device. The Account Health dashboard shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies required to sell on Amazon.
Can someone, especially from the Amazon team help me with this? The products in question have distinctive qualities from Apple AirPods, such as different lights in products, and they are coloured. These products were bought from Asia and there are multiple sellers selling the product on Amazon however its not possible from me to provide a document of Authenticity for these products.
What is the way to resolve this issue? Since I wasn’t selling Apple products to begin with, nor did I claim to be in any way, how does Amazon expect me to get Letter of Authorisation from Apple? What can I do to solve this issue and reactivate my Amazon?
Many thanks to anyone who tries to help in advance.
3 replies
Seller_PUgTge8LPB8FY
As you want responses from the “Amazon team” only, I won’t post a reply.
Seller_aBdIwE6B0aIjG
Hello @BOLKAN
Thank you reaching out to the Seller Forum community.
I understand that your account is taken down for Infringement issues and you haven’t been able to appeal on the same.
After going through the information you have provided, I’d like to help you with few suggestions as the appeal you have put together does not address the issues identified on the account.
Your appeal is focusing on trademark violations but as per the information and notifications you have shared, the violation is for Design Right.
Please rework on your Plan of Action addressing only the issues identified. Providing few points that will be helpful to address the issue.
- Root cause: Try and understand the “why, what, who, where and how?”
- What went wrong that the issue had come up?
- Did you seek permissions before mapping? If you have permissions, provide the same.
- If you do not agree to the claim, you must provide valid proofs to challenge this decision.
- Corrective measures: After receiving the notification, what steps had you taken to resolve the issue?
- Did you contact the Right’s owner to get a better understanding of this issue?
- Did you reach out to your supplier to confirm if they were authorized to sell the brand in question?
- Did you check your existing listings to see for any infringement which may have gone unnoticed?
- Have you deleted the listings that are in violation?
- Preventive steps: How can you control it? Think long term!
- What are the changes you can bring in to control or to avoid similar violation?
- If you are not authorized to sell a brand, how will you make sure to not list it?
-
If designing a new product, what steps do you go through to check existing patents/ensure your designs do not incorporate patented elements? -
How do you determine your products are compliant with Design patent protections? -
How will you ensure that you are informed of existing Design patent before you list a product?
To consider an appeal to be valid, the seller performance team generally focuses on the following points:
Did you fully comprehend the specific policies and the root cause that led to the enforcement action;
Removed all listings they were reported for and associated or similar listings.
Provided a reasonable plan to avoid any policy violations in the future. For example, you have changed manufacturers or you will no longer sell this brands product; or
Provided valid invoices, letter of authorization, images, or licensing agreements.
Once you are ready with all these points, you can send it across through the “Reactivate your account” from the Account health page and the concerned team will get back to you.
Regards,
Mittu
