As the market competition becomes more and more fierce, seller friends are paying more and more attention to protecting their own rights and interests, especially in the area of intellectual copyright. I believe that many sellers have unspeakable pain points. When we study competitors and platform sales data, we often discover an awesome product, which is a custom-made product that is sold by merchants. Within two days, we are targeted by the copyright owner, and then receive a small red flag. This kind of Pain, the editor thinks, is a necessary pain for a small business to grow into a big seller?
Our common intellectual copyright issues are divided into two types: one is appearance patent, and the other is intellectual copyright such as pictures and music. First, let’s talk about how to search for appearance patents:
1. Select an accurate knowledge retrieval database. The retrieval databases for various countries are as follows:
World Intellectual Property Organization: http://www.wipo.int/portal/en/
USPTO: ?http://www.uspto.gov/patent
EU EPO: ?http://www.epo.org/
Japan JPO: http://www.jpo.go.jp/
Korea KIPO: ?http://www.kipo.go.kr/kpo/eng/
China SIPO: http://www.sipo.gov.cn/
Germany DE: http://www.dpma.de/
European Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market: https://oami.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/
Australia AU: http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/
Canadian CA: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/home
United Kingdom UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/intellectual-property-office
Hong Kong HK: http://www.ipd.gov.hk/
New Zealand NZ: http://www.iponz.govt.nz/cms
2. How to judge whether appearance patent rights are infringed should be judged from the following two aspects:
A. In an infringement lawsuit, the design patentee shall submit a “design key point drawing” of its design to explain the original parts and content protected by the design; the patent file can be used as evidence to identify the key points of the design;
B. If the design patentee requests color protection, he shall provide relevant evidence recognized by the patent administration department to determine the scope of protection of the design.
C. The scope of protection of design patent rights should exclude design content that only serves functions and effects but is invisible to consumers during normal use or does not have an aesthetic effect on the product.
2. Examine whether the alleged infringing product and the patented product are similar products. If they are not similar products, it does not constitute infringement of design patent rights.
Similar products are the prerequisite for determining design patent infringement, but it does not rule out that under special circumstances, designs between similar products can also be determined for infringement.
3. Enter the knowledge retrieval database to search,
Taking the United States as an example, first enter the official US trademark and patent website and select Patents—Search patents. I will not demonstrate the specific operation steps here. I believe that all seller friends are familiar with this series of operations.