How to avoid intellectual property infringement in cross-border e-commerce?

        Cross border refers to a new type of international trade method in which entities belonging to different borders (customs) complete transactions through internet platforms, complete transactions online, and then deliver goods through cross-border logistics. So how to avoid intellectual property infringement in cross-border e-commerce?

        How to avoid intellectual property infringement in cross-border e-commerce? First of all, we should take precautions before doing good deeds, and start from the source to check.

        ① Investigate suppliers and their competitors to avoid purchasing from wholesalers who cannot provide relevant documents, which generally include authorization letters from genuine brand merchants.

        ② Fully understand the supplier's qualifications and inquire whether they have the right to produce and sell the product, ensuring that the source of goods is legal and legitimate. In addition, it is necessary to comply with standardized procedures during transactions and properly keep transaction vouchers, such as purchase contracts, invoices, purchase orders issued by suppliers, etc. Once intellectual property infringement disputes occur, these vouchers will become strong evidence.

        ③ Communicate clearly about the details of the source of goods, whether the product is independently developed or has been improved or deliberately imitated based on the products of others. It is very common to sell the same product of different brands on the platform, because suppliers may be supplying to different sellers at the same time. At this time, sellers should determine whether they are the exclusive seller. If everyone's product sources are the same and the products sold are the same, there is no problem of anyone infringing on their intellectual property rights.

        The most common problem for cross-border e-commerce sellers is the lack of awareness of intellectual property protection, leading to product infringement.

        Trademark rights: Unauthorized use of the other party's trademark or logo without obtaining official authorization from the product brand.

        Copyright: usually refers to the infringement of the author's copyright, such as famous domestic and foreign cartoons, anime, unique design patterns, and even packaging patterns, which is very common in cross-border e-commerce.

        Design patent right: refers to a new design that combines the shape, pattern, color, and combination of a product. Commonly seen as creative jewelry, personalized craft ornaments, and related foreign trade products, if the similarity reaches more than 60%, it may be judged as infringing counterfeit goods.

        Invention patent rights: mainly exclusive protection for original products and design concepts, with a wide range of protection. As long as the relevant concepts are the same, they are all considered counterfeit products.

        Many sellers often choose popular and hot selling products when selecting products, and hot selling products often have intellectual property protection. Blindly following sales can lead to infringement, so intellectual property rights in cross-border e-commerce have become the most important sector in international trade.

        The main ways for overseas cross-border e-commerce platforms to protect their rights:

        At present, the four major overseas cross-border platforms Amazon, eBay, Wish, and AliExpress all have intellectual property complaint and infringement channels, which are relatively similar to the complaint mechanism of the domestic Alibaba intellectual property protection platform.

        The complainant should first be an intellectual property owner recognized by the platform, which means that they need to register their intellectual property rights on the platform before filing a complaint. If they encounter infringement, they only need to enter the infringement complaint page and file a corresponding complaint. The above platforms generally do not have a positive attitude towards intellectual property rights that have not been certified, and this situation is unlikely to be successful.

        Therefore, it is recommended that sellers on e-commerce platforms have obtained the corresponding intellectual property certificate of the product before listing it.