The intellectual property system prevents vicious competition in the market. When we develop products, we should not only understand the intellectual property rights that already exist in the market, but also set intellectual property restrictions on our own products.
There are four main types of intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.
A patent is an exclusive right granted to an invention, a design product or production process that usually provides a new way of doing things or a new technical solution to a problem. To obtain a patent, technical information about the invention must be disclosed to the public in the patent application. After owning a patent, the patent owner can prevent or stop others from commercially exploiting the patented invention. In other words, patent protection means that others cannot commercially manufacture, use, distribute, import or sell the patented invention without the consent of the person who owns the patent right.
Many brand sellers on the Amazon platform often encounter competitors marketing and selling knockoffs, counterfeit or infringing products. The main intellectual property issues that Amazon sellers may encounter are as follows.
Copyright infringement: A third-party seller uses the copyright owner’s image in its product listing without authorization.
Trademark infringement: A third-party seller uses the trademark owner’s name or brand (or a substantially similar name or brand that may cause confusion) to sell competing products without authorization. This often happens when a third party attempts to sell counterfeit goods.
Patent infringement: A third-party seller copies and lists their version of a successfully patented product for sale without the patent owner’s permission.