Respectable amazon sir or madam, Our sincere greetings.
In wish that amazon can have an intuitive and comprehensive review on this seller crime of ours, we hereby declare under penalty of perjury, that to the best of our knowledge, the following
information is true and accurate. To start with, thank you for your notification letter informing us that our amazon seller account
were deactivated because we have caused intellectual property right infringement on amazon site. We do apologize for any inconvenience caused to your side. Further more, we also wish to extend
our heartfelt thanks for your patience to have stayed with us, guiding us to resolve this issue
in the most fundamental manner, and helping us make a profound change to ensure that such
an issue will not happen again in the future. Thank you for your time and dedication. As soon as we were notified our seller account was deactivated, we conducted an immediate
investigation into the issue scrupulously. After discreet confirmation, and also after careful
learning amazon intellectual property right policy, anti-counterfeit policy, prohibited seller
activities and actions regulation, we completely agree that amazon’s decision to deactivate our
seller account is rightful and unquestionable. The fact is, without being legally or formally
authorized by the rights owner to use their design right, we committed this crime by having listed
the following infringing ASINs on amazon site, sourced and sold related products that were
verified infringing and illegitimate, which is a policy/law violating action, and this action caused
intellectual property right infringement on the trusted marketplace of amazon.
Infringement type: Design Right
Impacted ASIN: B088D4YB7J, B088CWC9NM, B088D77ZR4, B088D8FCXC, B088CVM43D
Ever since the first day we were allowed to sell with amazon, we greatly cherish this opportunity
and we never stay too careful when it comes to customer satisfaction. We have always been
trying to adhere to the principle of being customer-satisfaction oriented in only hope to realize
the goal of becoming a trusted seller, who wishes to provide the best quality products and highest
customer service level for our beloved customers. With ultimate goal to build customer trust, we
truly have been working hard, and we have been continuously respecting amazon selling policies
and trying to stay complied to them. To our astonishment, we still received this account
deactivation letter because we were held guilty of violating amazon policy by causing intellectual
property right infringement. we immediately initiated a complete and scrupulous investigation
into this issue. With total shame, we must admit it’s rightful to have our seller account deactivated
because we must thoroughly confess, to amazon and to the law, that we had indeed committed
the following crimes. 1, Without understanding that we must be formally and legally authorized by the rights owner to
use their design right for business purpose, we directly listed detail pages for above
ASINs and then became a seller selling similar products to the truly genuine products coming with
integrally registered design right of the rights owner, so customers can also find our offer and
place an order from us if they prefer. We came across those genuine products from the rights owner on amazon and noticed that they
all seem to have a great customer demand and satisfaction at the same time, and they also have a
solidly decent sales rank on amazon. We believed by listing detail pages for these exact
products, we could also have a share of the potentially large quantity of customer orders. Without
full researching into amazon anti-counterfeit policy, intellectual property right policy, or
understanding on amazon policies and agreements, blinded by the sales potential of those
products from the rights owner on amazon site, we directly listed product detail pages for
above ASINs. Then we sourced products for above ASINs from a supplier and started
selling them on amazon. The exact moment our detail pages for these ASINs were displayed on amazon and became visible
to customers, a false appearance was created at the same time. A false and
deceiving appearance that we are also a “legit seller” selling “authentic/original” products from
the rights owner. And therefore our infringement/crime constituted because the above
ASINs/detail pages we listed contain information of rights owner’s registered design right fully
protected by intellectual property right law and amazon policies, and the related products we
sourced and sold are verified infringing and illegitimate. All sellers are required to respect intellectual property right of any third party, intentional or
unintentional infringement shall be regarded as a serious violation or crime. We accuse ourselves
as we are not authorized by the rights owner but we indeed had carried out selling activities by
using intellectual property of the rights owner, which is totally irresponsible and illegal. 2, To be very frank, nowadays in many Chinese domestic online marketplaces, inauthentic
products can be found everywhere. Sellers of these concerned products are not authorized by the
rights owners the products claim to be from. Instead of a legit retailer or a legitimately
commissioned manufacturer to produce authentic products for the rights owners, their so called
“original/authentic” products are all illegally manufactured duplicates/counterfeits/fakes. These
illegal factories/sellers have little moral sense but adopt all methods possible to deceive buyers for
excessive profits. We came to know a supplier offline who claimed to be an authorized retailer of the rights owner. This supplier recommended products of the above ASINs to us and acutely encouraged us to sell
them on Amazon. We were stupid and irresponsible to have not carefully studied amazon selling policies, especially
amazon intellectual property right policy, but only with eager to achieve “success” by creating
sales. With our eyes blinded by the promising sales potential of these products, without a very
discreet confirmation on qualification of the supplier for item authenticity, we directly sourced
products for the above ASINs from the non-trusted supplier, and we paid our price for it.
It was clearly and costly proved that the supplier is never an authorized retailer of the rights
owner. He had been lying from the beginning. With our face turning pale for fury about ourselves, we were terribly ignorant because we didn’t even understand that, even if the supplier was
indeed a legit retailer of the rights owner, we are still STRICTLY prohibited from listing above ASINs, or sourcing products from the supplier for selling, because our company was not authorized by
the rights owner to list or sell these products protected by intellectual property right law. This is a
common sense and is commonly acknowledged in every corner of the world, but we didn’t realize
it. We sourced products for above ASINs from the supplier, but the supplier is not trusted and is
never authorized by the rights owner to use their design right, but units of above ASINs we
sourced from the supplier all have an almost identical outer look, appearance as well as inner
features and functions to rights owner’s registered design right. Instead of directly from the rights
owner, his products are all illegally duplicated and not legit at all. 3, Looking back to all details in this crime from a perspective of an umpired criminal, it’s already
too late to be sorry. We were previously granted a chance by amazon to take immediate
preventative actions before things turned out like this. We failed to take the chance, we failed to
make the most of it, and we totally deserved it to be removed from amazon site. We must admit before amazon decided to remove our selling privileges, there were already
warning notification letters from amazon which clearly notified us with infringing ASINs that had
intellectual property right issues that needed to be permanently deleted from our inventory, all
units stored in amazon fulfillment centers also needed to be immediately destroyed.
It was also clearly noted that upon receiving the warning, we were clearly required to conduct a
review on all other listing remaining in our seller central and permanently delete all listings and
destroy all units with intellectual property right risks. We were clearly notified that failure to
comply with this request will lead to removal of our selling privileges. BUT, we failed to completely
understand the notification which resulted in final removal of our selling privileges.
By the time we received the warning notifications, we found all our offers for the above ASINs
were already blocked by amazon and cannot be found in buyers pages. We failed to understand
that instead of closing the offers, we must permanently DELETE the infringing listings from our
inventory, as this is the only acceptable action we must take to immediately stop infringing. With all those illegal/infringing offers already removed by amazon by the time we received the
warning notification letter, we intolerably and stupidly believed no further action was required
from our side. We accuse ourselves and we blame ourselves because we had a chance to make things right from
the root, but we failed to make the most of the precious only chance, and we totally deserved this
consequence. 4, To take a deep-going self reflection on ourselves, as soon as we received the account removal
notification, we put a temporary hold on our online business on all marketplaces. We know we
must slow down, we need to immediately stop, to identify all weakness of ours and then have
them strengthened, to locate any loophole in side of this team and then have them fixed. * We started our online business with some traditional domestic online markets, where selling
regulations for sellers are not integrally precise or regulative. Without being very strictly regulated
by law, some seller actions are unbelievably tolerated, such as intellectual property right
infringement. We must acknowledge that having been involved inside of such a disordered
environment filled with sellers aiming at only profit for a rather long time, our concept and
practice in business operation became horribly solidified and also misled to wrongly believe, online marketplaces only differ in tiny aspects, and policies in a certain online market would also
apply to another. * Eager to prove ourselves and to realize our goal to make a success out of ourselves, we adopted
the same methods as we did on other domestic online markets by actively listing products in
wish to quickly create sales. But our excessive and rapid listing of products was not fully supported
by an extremely scrupulous and responsible examination or confirmation to clear intellectual
property right risk or item authenticity risk. Instead of the “success” we wished for, it only led to a
sharp increase in the risk of intellectual property right infringement. * Our company should have put a strict regulation on management on our business, especially on
supervising and monitoring our selling activities. We didn’t completely understand amazon selling
policies, we should have been strictly trained with amazon anti-counterfeit policy, amazon
intellectual property policy, amazon seller code of conduct, amazon seller prohibited activities, and we should be trained to have radical sense of responsibility for every action we take. * Before listing a product, our employees did not conduct any background checking on these
products or listings, they never paid attention to the risks if these products and listings may violate
intellectual property, or come with authenticity risk, for example, if the product comes with a
unique design owned by others, if the product is patented that need valid owner authorization to
sell. And after a product listing is created, we did not have a supervision on these products or listings, to check them backwards from perspective of law, and see if any of the listings is infringing. * We should also have taken full responsibility for sourcing products carefully and conducting a
thorough check/verification on our suppliers qualification for products authenticity. We should
have established a professional team that expertise in intellectual property right to be responsible
for this. * We should have also established another supervision team who has full knowledge in all amazon
selling policies and to to conduct a thorough check on our product listings every half an hour and
every day to prevent listing any product that do not comply with amazon policy. * Our quality control team should also be trained to get well aware of product authenticity and
intellectual property right knowledge to double check each and every our products for intellectual
property right risk, authenticity risk. We should have put a strict and thorough check on product
themselves, not only to check product quality, condition, but also check product for intellectual
property right risks before shipping. We didn’t have standardized procedures to check, correct our listings, and verify our products. Each of these problems is severer than the other. They indicate that every day in our previous
selling, we were exposed to grave risks in causing intellectual property infringement. We understand as a violator, we have no right to be pardoned, yet from the bottom of our heart, we sincerely wish to thank you all over for having removed our selling privileges to immediately
stop things from getting worse, and to immediately shut us down so that we can take a deep
reflection on ourselves, to find out all our problems, and further have them fixed from the root. Even if our selling privileges had already been removed, we still feel extremely obliged to take full
responsibility for this infringement and take it as our urgent duty to stop our infringement
immediately, to prevent any further infringement in the future, and to make all things right at
once. To take full responsibility for this crime, to immediately solve the issue and to prevent such an
issue from happening again in the future, immediate actions have been taken:
1, An urgent matter to pay serious attention to, in order that we will not cause any intellectual
property right infringement in the future, we must pave the way for ourselves. With assistance from China Online Market Management Office, a governmental department
providing legal support for issues related to law for the public, we managed to establish a
specialized intellectual property right team for consulting intellectual property right issues in our
future selling. This team is administered by an experienced lawyer in common law for
international intellectual property, he is a member in civil service system of China. With this team as our solid support, forward-looking suggestions on our future selling activities
can be offered, and in turn, preventative measures against risks in intellectual property right cam
also be taken in advance. * This team will help us review our suppliers’ business qualification in product authenticity so that
we can sort out the unqualified ones. * They will help us examine our product listings to pick out for removing infringing information
which is not limited to trademark wordings, third party logos, non-business third party legal
appellations etc. * They will help us conduct a professional-knowledge-based examination on sample products we
sell or intend to sell in the future to identify any design right, patent or copyright risk with these
products. * As a part of their specific duty in civil service system, they are also required to regularly lecture
online sellers including us about intellectual property knowledge, it covers sellers from almost all
major online markets with amazon as a typical example.
With this specialized team to support us in future selling, our product listings can be prevented
from containing any infringing information, our products can be prevented from coming with any
third party intellectual property we are not allowed to use for selling, and we ourselves can also
gradually learn solid intellectual property knowledge to be able to self-assist in this regard. 2, We are determined to prevent any customer from seeing any infringing listing in our store or
receiving any infringing unit from us ever again. Under supervision of this intellectual property team, we immediately and
permanently DELETED all the illegal/infringing listings/offers of above ASINs and all other ASINs
believed with risk of infringing, and destroyed all units stored in amazon warehouse and in China
to prevent any of them getting inside of the market or reaching customers. More profoundly, we do not plan an immediate re-listing of any content or selling any product fro
the time being. Because in this root locating and resolution searching process, we understand we
must stop until we are truly ready for selling again. A meeting gathering all departments in our
entire company was held, we unanimously decided to NOT list a single product listing on amazon
until each and every one of us is fully trained and shaped a serious attitude toward each and every
term amazon selling policies regulate, until we are all truly ready to take FULL responsibility for
our future selling activities on amazon, until we can completely guarantee that we will NEVER
violate any amazon selling policies in the future. Unanimously, we make this decision, and
altogether, we stick to this promise. 3, With help and consult from this exact intellectual property team, we made a second thorough
examination in our inventory and products, we checked all remaining listings from image, bullet
point, description, search term, image and all aspects to clear intellectual property infringing
information. We carefully checked these listings word by word, image by image to not only make sure they do
not infringe any third party’s intellectual property right but also to make sure they do not violate
any applicable amazon listing regulations such as restricted product regulations, condition
guidelines etc. We checked our products from appearance, design, packaging, function and accessories to make
sure they do not come with any intellectual property right issue. Any listing with above concern had been permanently removed from our inventory, and any
product with above concern had been immediately destroyed. Not visualized, these actions can
only be told in above a few sentences, yet behind these sentences, the attitude towards
infringement-clearance in our company is severe and serious.
4, With insufferable regret that we will never forget in our entire life, we immediately contacted
the rights owner in wish to apologize for our infringement.
Instead of apologizing to them to have them retract the compliant, we sincerely apologized for
our infringement and offered to compensate at all costs for the loss we caused to them on
their legal interests.
In the messages we sent to the right owner’s legal department and brand building department, we sincerely apologized for this infringement caused by us and we volunteered to pay whatever
costs for the infringement and harm caused to them. But maybe it’s because we are too
unremarkable a seller to waste time for, we really regret to have received no response from the
rights owner yet. However we sincerely beg amazon’s understanding that we feel greatly obliged
to make up for this issue and take our full responsibility for the consequence. We will keep trying to get in touch with the rights owner to make a compensation at all costs on
the one hand. On the other hand, we hereby also agree and fully authorize amazon (if
authorization is needed) to transfer all balance remaining in our seller account to the rights owner
as a second compensation just in case we keep receiving no reply message from the rights owner. Last but not the least, we understand our infringement is a serious matter to be punished for, if by
any chance we could be pardoned by the rights owner and by amazon, we hereby also completely
agree and fully authorize amazon (if authorization is needed) to transfer our amazon balance in
the next 36 months to the rights owner as a long term compensation. 5, With current workforce of ours strictly trained with amazon selling policies, especially amazon
intellectual property right policy, we have also strengthened our sales team by enhancing it with a
few more experienced amazon sellers who have been selling with amazon for years. What we saw in these new pals are their acquaintance in amazon selling policies and loyalty to
these policies these years. Their duty in work is simple but also strictly requited to keep up the
pace with the newest selling policy updates. They are responsible for examining our existing listings and participating into our future listings
composition, to find and remove any potentially infringing information, or to delete the infringing
listing directly. Every word and every image in a product detail page will be paid serious attention to, will be
checked for all details only for this ultimate target, that is to make sure our remaining product
listings and listings we intend to upload in the future do not cause intellectual property right
infringement.
Proposed by these exact partners, they also believed it necessary to keep a close look at our detail
pages frequently at an hour basis to prevent them from being tampered with intentionally or
unintentionally, so as to always ensure no IP infringing information will ever exist in our inventory, and ever be displayed on amazon site. 6, With help and consult from these new experienced employees who have been selling on
amazon for years,we have made a third thorough check in our inventory. We checked all content for our listings image by image, word by word to make sure they do not
violate amazon intellectual property right policy, anti-counterfeit policy, listing regulations, restricted product regulations, condition guidelines etc. Any listing with above concern had been immediately removed and will not be re-listed ever
again. 7, We immediately canceled all contracts we blindly signed with the supplier previously. All infringing units produced by him were purchased by us (even if they are infringing units, but we
are still in legal obligation to pay for the costs of them) and them destroyed without any hesitation. With this action taken, and with no intention to sell these infringing products ever again in the
future, our source of these infringing products was truncated. On the other hand, we had reported this supplier to a local marketing bureau for fraudulence in
only wish that other customers or sellers can be well prevented from being deceived by this exact
irresponsible supplier. 8, We standardized the process from product sourcing to publishing. * Before deciding to sell a product, the product must be checked on the following official
trademark and patent websites to identify potential intellectual property it comes with to avoid
infringement. EUIPO, WIPO, GOOGLE PATENT
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/
https://www.tmdn.org/tmdsview-web/welcome
- Before sourcing a product, the supplier must provide all the necessary documents including
invoices, receipts, authorization letters, records of transaction to prove the product’s originality
and the compliance channel. ^ If we source products from the manufacture, we will ask for provide registration certificates of
design right, patent, trademark, copyright or authorization issued to them from the right holder. ^ If we source products from a distributor, we will ask for invoice, brand authorization letter, sale
license, product test report, product safety report and so on. * Before publishing a product amazon, an overall checking on the listing must be completed one
more time by our lawyer, who inspects in detail of the listing contents from images to wording
parts. * It is strictly regulated now, that if a salesman has trouble deciding if a product will cause
infringement, he must not list it, they must consult our lawyer for help. 9, More than ninety percent of the world's latest design patents and utility patents are
documented in the patent literature an can also be found on patent websites. A comprehensive
design right/patent search can help us determine whether a product we intend to list and sell has
been design righted or patented by others already, so as to protect ourselves from causing
infringement on the design rights/patents of others. So before designing, listing, sourcing or selling a specific product on amazon, to understand the
innovation, novelty and design of related design rights/patents, we will conduct discreet design
right/patent searches by consulting relevant scientific and technical journals, magazines and other
scientific and technical materials.
In addition, we will also conduct discreet searches on certain design right/patent websites through
keywords of a specific product to identify infringement risk and further take immediate actions
against our products and product listings. 10, In order to avoid design right/patent infringement, before designing/developing new products
or listing, sourcing and selling products on amazon, we will always conduct a complete search and
analysis of relevant design rights/patents to understand the existing design right/patent
infringement risks.
We have established a full-time dedicated department for design right and patent management
and strategic planning to deal with the matters in design right and patent. To be absolutely secure
in this part, we are also doubling this discreetness by entrusting an external professional
organization to verify and confirm such searches and analysis results at the same time to avoid
infringement at all times. 11, If we intend to list and sell products that are already patented or already come with a
registered design right, we must respect this intellectual property of others and we must try to
obtain the authorization of the right owners before actually listing and selling these specific
products on amazon. We must respect other people's design rights and patents while at the same time, must develop
our own core technologies and have our own designs and patents. We have established a business and technology evaluation system corresponding to intellectual
property rights for timely and credible legal support for design right and patent issues in our
future selling on amazon. 12, Use official websites for identifying intellectual property of a product, this include design right, patent, trademark and copyright etc. http://www.wipo.int/wipogold/en
https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/agencies/euipo_en
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/
https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/
https://www.tmdn.org/tmdsview-web/welcome
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/web/all/top/BTmTopEnglishPage
http://www.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/homepg_e.ipdl
http://oami.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/
http://oami.europa.eu/RCDOnline/RequestManager%23
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/numberSearch%3Flocale%3Den_EP
These websites are closely related to local bureaus of intellectual property and the searching
results usually come with official authority and have a very small chance of being wrong. These
websites will be used for helping us confirm intellectual property right risk with our current listings
and products, and will be used every time we intend to list a product detail page or sell a product
on amazon. 13, Search keywords of a product on Google or uploading the images of the product onto Google
Image Identification. Normally, a product that comes with intellectual property right can be easily found in searching
results with rich information about the types of the intellectual property it comes with as well as
the rights owner information and etc. With these information, we could be well informed of the intellectual property right of a certain
product, and this product will not be listed, sourced or sold by us unless we are formally and legal
authorized by the rights owner to do so. 14, Evaluate intellectual property right risk of a certain product basing on the quantity of sellers
on amazon.
Intellectual property right is normally under strict management by an enterprise legal department, and the rights owners usually put a strict regulation on the persons or other entities whom may
be authorized to use their intellectual property right. This supervision from the rights owners usually leads to a limited quantity of sellers selling certain
products with tights owners’ intellectual property. We will take a close look and pay discreet investigation into the quantity of detail pages and
sellers of a certain product on amazon to evaluate the intellectual property risk of the product on
amazon. 15, To prevent trademark infringement and block counterfeited products: * We will never use trademark of any third party including their word mark and logo to compose
our product listings, and we will never make a duplicate of them or let them appear on our
product body as well as product packaging. And surely, we will never tamper, modify or
counterfeit the word mark or logo of an existing registered trademark owned by others then use
them inside of our product listings or on our product body and packaging. The above actions are
usually oriented by business purpose and will directly cause customer confusion to identify the
source of the products and service support behind these products. If we are not authorized by the
trademark owner, the above actions will cause serious damage on the right owner’s legal rights. * We will never use unregistered trademarks in our product listings or on our product body as well
as product packaging. We understand trademark can be regional, and this means an unregistered
trademark in China can haven already been registered in other regions and countries. So directly
using an unregistered trademark in our product listing or on our product/packaging will make our
listings infringing, and make our products counterfeits. Before composing a product listing on
amazon and before manufacturing units as well as packaging for these units, we will conducts
searches on specific but official trademark websites from the specific target region/country. We
will search literally each word in a certain product listing of ours to filter and identify any word
that is actually a registered trademark of others. After each product including product packaging is
manufactured, before putting them into direct use, we will take pictures of it from different angles
and upload them onto these websites to identify any trademark wording or logo infringement risk. * If we intend to sell a trademarked product on amazon, before listing this product, we must be
formally approved/authorized by the trademark owner to make use of their trademark to list
detail pages, source and sell related products. Authorized sales directly by the trademark owner is
a kind of recognition of the source and of the authenticity of the product, and is a way for us to
gain customer trust. To have a sold stand in being approved/authorized by the trademark owner
to list detail pages for and sell their trademarked products, we will reach out the trademark owner
to bring our intention into building a solid cooperation relationship to them, if consented, we will
formally sign a business contract with the rights owner, and this business contract will be
notarized to ensure enforcement in law. If this business intention is not consented, we will never
use this trademark to list any product on amazon or elsewhere, and we will never source this
trademarked product from any party online or offline. * To avoid counterfeiting products, we will carefully examine products manufactured by ourselves
and products sourced from our suppliers. We will scrupulously check every detail from every angle
of the products themselves and their packaging at the same time. Unit by unit, inside and outside, detail by detail will these units be scrutinized to make sure the products and their packaging come
with no word mark, logo or any other identification mark that is actually a registered trademark of
others. We will never duplicate/reproduce a registered trademark owned by others or produce a
similar mark to a registered trademark on our product or product packaging, which will terribly
cause customer confusion, irretrievably cause customer dissatisfaction and horribly cause injuries
on rights owner’s reputation and legal interests. Please also know this process has already been
taken and completed against all existing products in our stock house.
- When designing a trademark logo and product packaging for composting product listings and
selling products, we will highlight the graphics of this trademark and we will use as little
decorative pattern as possible to prevent trademark infringement to the minimum. We will
consider the requirements for labeling and packaging design before the time of filing registration, or we will design the product identification marks and packaging before submitting the
registration for the part that can be registered as a trademark. In addition, we will definitely pay
great attention to the identification marks and packaging of similar products in the same industry
to avoid similarity to these marks or packaging. We will never follow the design style of others, and we will never copy the unique design ideas and styles of others. * We will always make correct use of our registered trademarks in accordance with the laws from
the target country where our amazon business in engaged. We will never change the pattern of
our trademark. But if it is necessary to have the trademark pattern changed, before putting this
new pattern into direct use, we will have this changed pattern registered and further approved
first. * Directors in charge of our company and members of our trademark team, including designers of
trademark, logo and packaging should be familiar with all applicable trademark laws of the target
country/region where our amazon business is related. They should always take insightful learning
and inquiry into these specific trademark laws to shape a deep-going understanding and profound
knowledge themselves at first, so our directors can make right decisions, trademark workers can
carry out their work with trademark in a more flexible and infringement-preventative way. 16, A copyright protects original works of authorship, such as videos, movies, songs, books, musicals, video games, paintings, etc. Generally, copyright law is meant to incentivize the creation
of original works of authorship for the benefit of the public. * We will never use online materials or information from any third party from anywhere, such as
downloading an image from another amazon seller’s product detail page, edit this image and then
use this image to advertise similar products of ours. * We will not copy content from others, this include third party websites, other sellers’ detail
pages, books, journals and etc. We will never upload any content we don’t know the origin to our
product detail pages, we will never upload any content unless we are the author, unless we are
able to prove the content is original from us.
- We have established a second department for product image taking, processing and
optimization. We request both our image departments to be responsible for image originality, and
we request all salesmen to use only product images provided by our own image department. And we will well keep those origin-images to prove they are original from us if question arises. * For every listing we are going to upload on amazon, we will pose these products in pure white
background and take photographs for them by ourselves. And we will come use our own thoughts
and ideas to complete the word parts of the listing such as item title, bullet points, descriptions
and etc. * For every product we are going to source or sell on amazon, we will conduct a detailed
examination on these items from body, accessories, user manual to packaging, to identify any
printed image, pattern or other contents that are copyrighted by a right owner already. Such
products will not withheld for proper disposal. 17, Our layer will directly get involved in our account management, in training our entire company
until all departments of ours shape a profound and thorough understanding in amazon intellectual
property policy and all other policies our daily work is closely related to. * Before listing a product, the listing must be checked by the lawyer to ensure there is no
infringing content in the listing. This include all the images, title, bullet points, descriptions and
also search terms. * Before sourcing a product, the supplier must provide all necessary documents to prove the
originality or compliance channel of the product, this include intellectual property registration
certificates for design right, patent, trademark or copyright, right holder authorization letter, selling license, invoice, receipts and etc. With help from our lawyer, we will carefully check each of our listings to not only make sure
images, title, bullet points, description, search terms and everything else in a detail page don’t
violate intellectual property right of others, but also precisely match the actual product itself. We will also consistently check our listings and products basing on the newest updates of amazon
policies to double ensure they do not contain any infringing information.
18, We will put a strict qualification requirement on our suppliers. To have ourselves prevented from similar issues in the future, we must carefully evaluate our
suppliers to ensure their products are in no conflict with any intellectually property right of any
third party. Only a trusted supplier with solid qualification in intellectual property, product
authenticity, advanced manufacturing technology, durable raw material, good quality control
ability, efficient order handing ability will be accepted as a reliable partner to start or keep
cooperation with. Otherwise, such cooperation in any aspect or in any form must be immediately
stopped for re-evaluation as mentioned above. Abiding this rule, we have ended our cooperation with some of the suppliers who were proved
unqualified, while at the same time, we already shaped a few more new supplying chains
connecting other more qualified suppliers who have a solidly good reputation in the industry. These leading companies enjoy a rather good reputation for their service, product authenticity, quality control ability. As we are the seller on Amazon, it is us to be responsible for each content we upload, each
product we sell and service we offer for customers. We are going to be selective with our business
partners who are currently supplying products for us. We are also going to keep a strict product
authenticity demand and product quality demand on them, and we shall never continue our
cooperation with any supplier who fail to meet these standards. Details are but not limited to the
following:
A* We will verify the authenticity of the products we source and intend to sell on amazon. Our
purchasing manager will continuously perform a strict and thorough check on product
authenticity and quality of the products we source and intend to sell. B* If we intend to sell products protected by intellectual property right of others, we will ensure
that we source the product(s) directly from the rights owners or from a validly authorized party by
the rights owners. C* We will keep all related documents and records of transaction, such as design right certificate, patent certificate, or any other intellectual property right ownership certificates as well as invoices
from already particularly selected suppliers that can prove product authenticity. D* We will ensure the products we sell are safe. Customer safety is of paramount importance to
us. We will be extremely careful with our product safety to make sure they will never cause harm
to customers. E* We have reviewed all our suppliers and immediately ended any cooperation with a supplier
who was evaluated as unqualified. In the future, before building a cooperation partnership with
any supplier, there will be a strict qualification evaluation process applied to these specific
suppliers.
F* Online background check. We will check the reviews and feedback from other sellers for
specific suppliers. A supplier who consistently receives negative feedback or disappointing reviews
will be directly eliminated from the selection list. G* Physical visits to legal entities of suppliers. Our supplier evaluation team will pay visits to
suppliers’ physical addresses including their factories to check their qualification including but not
limited to legal documents, product qualification certificates, business license etc. H* We will always place a sample order first to check product authenticity, quality, safety, applicability, and any related legal document before a bulk order is placed to a supplier. 19, As we wish to always provide customers with authentic and the best quality products, therefore we must scrutinize every single unit before shipping them to customers. Twice, we will check each and every unit before it’s actually shipped out for fulfilling customer
orders. We believe with this scrupulous product examination and test process, a product with any
intellectual property issue can be sorted out for destruction, a product with any deficiency will be
disposed and then replaced with a new one, then this new one will go through the process above
once again. We are definitely going to check and test each product we sell, color, size, specifications, accessories and all relevant aspects, to make sure the product is authentic, not defective or has
any defect that will cause customer dissatisfaction. Anyway, the product itself must be perfect. To
specify this specific process:
A* Check each product for product authenticity certificate, quality certification, mandatory mark, such as QC mark, etc. B* Check otter packaging for each product to make sure these products come in original
packaging and in undamaged condition. C* Check each product for completeness such as user manual, promised product accessories to
make sure these products arrive and will be delivered to customer in completeness. D* Perform product feature/function tests on each product to ensure these products are in
perfect working condition. E* Store products according to their unique features. Some products need to be stored in a
particular manner with extra caution. F, Inspect every out-going package and make sure products to be shipped match the specific
customer orders.
G Ensure the correct quantity of products to be shipped. H* Ensure products to be shipped are in the correct color, type, model, size and etc.
I* Ensure products to be shipped are new, clean and scratch/defect free. J* Ensure products to be shipped work perfectly and is not damaged in a way that will render it
difficult to use. K* Adopt cushions with rebound to help minimize repeated shocks during transition. L* Include user instructions and then ship these products out in their original packaging. 20, As for products we intend to list and sell in the future, currently we are trying to organize
a specific research team of our own in wish that we can sell only products with our own
intellectual property right instead of having to purchase from a supplier, whose qualification
needs to be constantly and strictly examined to keep us away from any potential intellectual
property right risk.
It’s glad that we have already designed a product model, and this model had already been
checked by our intellectual property right team mentioned above, who had spent months of
time on carefully checking, verifying and confirming, and cleared the model of any intellectual
property infringement risk. We have already sent this model to a leading company from the US, a manufacturer and also a
supplier we recently started cooperation with, to manufacture them in bulk.
In the near future, all products we are going to sell on Amazon will be exclusively these
self-designed and infringement-free products. 21, To shape a very clear understanding and knowledge in amazon intellectual property right
policy, and to have our future selling activities fully regulated, with a serious learning attitude, we
have carefully studied all Amazon selling policies from all aspects and we had given a serious and
severe training on our entire company. We have carefully studied and remembered Amazon's
intellectual property policy, amazon anti-counterfeit policy, amazon restricted product guideline
and amazon prohibited seller activities etc. For example, we have added the following Amazon
policies to our company regulations to constantly strengthen our’ awareness on intellectual
property protections.
If we supply products for sale on Amazon, we must comply with all laws and Amazon policies
applicable to those products and product listings.
Amazon is dedicated to providing customers with the widest selection of goods and to provide an
amazing customer experience. Amazon does not allow listings that violate the intellectual property rights of brands or other
rights owners. We must consult a lawyer if we have a specific question about our IP rights or the IP rights of
others. We are expected to follow the law and Amazon’s policies. Amazon takes claims of intellectual property infringement seriously. Even if a seller is infringing on
someone’s intellectual property without knowledge, Amazon will still take action and the seller’s
account might receive a warning or be suspended. We should consult an attorney for help to ensure that our business has the right procedures in
place to prevent IP infringement. We made an amendments on our own company’s selling regulations by codifying the above terms
from amazon for a simple reason, that is to have every one of us alerted, to help us build
a seriously solid and respectful attitude towards intellectual property right of others. 22, To shape a deep understanding on amazon anti-counterfeit policy, amazon intellectual
property policy, amazon prohibited seller activities etc, these specific selling regulations were read, thought over and then learned by heart. To make these abstract sentences more visualized, we
codified these policies into our own book of company regulations. As noted, we read these
policies, but they are only sentences, so we unscramble them with our own understanding. As a seller on amazon, we must always and only offer/sell authentic products. This is only one of
the principles we must always adhere to prevent our seller account from being removed. We must
always take it as our own responsibility to source, sell, and fulfill only authentic and accepted
products. To achieve this goal, we must always stay away from products such as bootlegs, fakes, or pirated
copies of products or content, and we also must always get rid of products that have been illegally
replicated, reproduced, or manufactured, as well as products that infringe another party’s
intellectual property rights. Violating above rules will lead to severe consequences of being
immediately suspended or permanently blocked on amazon, or even lead to criminal fines and
imprisonment. We should take it as an obligation to work together with amazon to improve the ways amazon
detects and prevents inauthentic products from reaching customers, which is also an ultimate
goal we set for ourselves.
It is amazon who stands behind the products sold on Amazon site, it’s amazon who enables us to
reach millions of customers around the world and it is amazon who provides us this platform tho
strive with a dream. We should honor this opportunity, we shall stand by the side of amazon, and
we must always respect any policy amazon comes out and puts up on there to truly be worthy of
it. 23, We will ALWAYS take it as our own responsibility to source, sell, and fulfill only authentic
products. We currently understand that prohibited products include: * Bootlegs, fakes, or pirated copies of products or content; * Products that have been illegally replicated, reproduced, or manufactured; * Products that infringe another party’s intellectual property rights. We will be honored and very much willing to work with Amazon to improve the ways Amazon
detects and prevents inauthentic products from reaching customers. 24, With this severe lesson learned, and with insightful suggestion from out intellectual property
right team, we had decided to never list against a product detail page created by other sellers. Whenever a seller decides to list against an existing product detail page in amazon catalogue, he
must make sure the listing itself does not infringe on intellectual property right of any third party, he must make sure the product he offers is authentic, is exactly, completely identical to how the
detail page advertises, he must make sure he was authorized by the rights owner (for example, he
must be authorized by the owner of the trademark under which the product detail page is
created), he must make sure item is completely clear of any design
right/patent/trademark/copyright dispute, he must make sure item is carefully and discreetly
checked an tested with no quality issue before shipping, he must make sure item will not be
damaged during shipping,and etc. Any carelessness/dereliction in duty/ with any of the above factor will directly cause infringement
on intellectual property right, customer dissatisfaction, customer complaint for authenticity and
other consequences that may hold us liable for violating amazon selling policy and law. Each and every one of us are severely and strictly required to never list against a product detail
page created by other sellers to prevent any potential risks mentioned above.
25, We will always stay alerted and will be extremely careful with creating product detail pages, selecting products and suppliers in the future. We will carefully check each and every listing of ours to not only make sure item image, item title, bullet point, description, search term and every thing else in a detail page don’t contain any
infringing information, but also exactly matches the actual product itself. We will also consistently
check our listings and products basing on the updates on the newest intellectual property
information, so that we an always one step ahead to remove or delete the infringing contents
from our inventory, and take proper action to the products themselves related to these contents
uploaded. As mentioned previously, our team of intellectual property and team of experienced
seller pals are directly involved in our daily work, in training all of us to constantly stay a complete, thorough understanding on amazon intellectual property right policy and other policies we shall
honor and respect. They will also be responsible for constantly checking all our listings on amazon, all products we intend to sell, and all suppliers we have cooperation with to make sure each and
every aspect in a amazon business is policy-abiding and infringement free. 26, With a clear understanding that to stay a part on this trusted marketplace of amazon, all
sellers with no exception must have their selling activities fully regulated by amazon selling
policies. As a seller with permanent wish to always stay trustworthy and reliable for customers, we have
literally gone through all policy pages accessible through our seller central. Instead of giving a
hurried glance at these pages, we read these pages without skipping a single word. It took some
time, but we somehow feel completed and greatly enriched as we never felt before. After learning these policies, we deeply understand that all sellers must follow all the rules and
policies of amazon. He who violates these regulations and policies will be punished accordingly, and even face the permanent removal of seller account and permanent withhold of and funds. It’s
a long list to enumerate, but they are being memorized by us as they have been printed onto our
company regulatory manual, which has been put onto the walls of our working lobby, meeting
room and canteen. *We will ALWAYS adhere to all applicable laws and abide by all amazon policies. *We will ALWAYS maintain current account information of ours ( company or personal). *We will ALWAYS act in a manner that ensures a trustworthy experience for amazon customers. *We will ALWAYS act fairly at all times. *Behavior that could be deemed as manipulation or "gaming" of any part of the buying or selling experience. *We will NEVER misrepresent ourselves ( company or personal).
*We will NEVER list products that may cause harm to customers. *We will NEVER engage in any misleading, inappropriate or offensive behavior. *We will NEVER provide inappropriate information on our account. *We will NEVER provide inappropriate information in our listings, content or images. *We will NEVER engage in inappropriate communication between us (company or personal) and
amazon or us (company or personal) and customers. *We will NEVER engage in actions that could be perceived as manipulating customer reviews,
including by directly or indirectly contributing false, misleading or inauthentic content. *We will NEVER engage in activities that could be perceived as attempting to manipulate
Amazon's search results or sales rankings. *We will NEVER engage in actions that intentionally damage another seller, their listings or their
ratings. To honor these requirements, we have carefully learned these policies word by word, we have
also memorized them and we will surely abide by these policies in future selling. 27, We will always keep ourselves updated to amazon selling policies especially updates on
amazon anti-counterfeiting policy, amazon intellectual property right policy, amazon prohibited
seller activities. We understand it’s our ultimate responsibility to always maintain amazon a trusted marketplace. We will carefully learn to understand these selling policies to stay an active and responsible part of
this trusted marketplace. For instance, we understand that it’s not permitted to list materially different items in a variation, we understand sellers must not create an item detail page for amazon restricted products such as
lock picking device, pistol, gun powder, pen knife etc, we understand sellers must keep customers’ contact information in confidentiality, we understand sellers must not abuse product ratings, feedback or reviews etc. We will adhere to these policies only wish to maintain amazon a trusted marketplace, and we
keep being a part of it. We promise so and we are trying all efforts to do so. 28, We are trying to build a radical sense of responsibility for all of us, and we believe this
responsibility is also rather a promise to beloved customers.We must put customer satisfaction
before anything else, we must make customers happy no matter what. We are always ready to
honor any request from customers, form a replacement request to a full refund request. We are
fully prepared to answer any questions from customers, to solve a technical issue without keeping
customers waiting, to guide customers to use the item properly. We will try our best to comfort
customers and address any concern of theirs in the most efficient way. Please know that after
each order is fulfilled, we always send a back-up message to customers to encourage them to let
us know if there is any thing we can help and support, and in the message we will voluntarily offer
necessary help to customers to make them happy with the purchase. We believe this message
with our lifetime warranty and 7-24 support and service will help build great trust between
customers and us. 29, We will take it as our ultimate responsibility to always maintain amazon a trusted marketplace
by ensuring customers with authentic, best quality products and highest customer service level at
the same time. From this lesson, we cannot be too careful and serious when it comes to customer satisfaction
because customer satisfaction matters the most.
In the future, we will try our best to be 100 percent sure that all items we sell and customers
receive are authentic, brand new and exactly as described, all products we sell on amazon are
original and of very good quality, all orders are delivered in described brand new condition and
within expected time range promised. We understand this infringement had caused serious damage on rights owner’s legal interests, on
amazon platform reputation and on trust of our beloved customers. By making such a horrible
mistake, we can’t be more sorry for having failed this great honor selling with amazon, the
greatest selling platform in the world. We understand it might be already too late to make up for the damages caused by us on all
sides, but with tears and with this severe lesson learned, if there is any chance we can take to
compensate for our fault, we are EAGER to make the most of this chance and take all actions to
make all things right immediately, and to prevent such an issue from happening ever again in the
future. We do apologize all over, for just everything. With respect and fear at the same time, we hereby look forward to receiving a
message from amazon.
Sincerely and Best Regards
