Robert Smith hired Chicago IP attorneys to file a sizable trademark infringement suit against a list of e-commerce violators, including but not limited to eBay, AliExpress, Alibaba, Amazon, Wish.com, Walmart, Etsy, DHGate, and Temu (collectively “Third Party Providers”). He wants an injunction stopping Defendants from selling this stuff, an account of Defendants’ profits realized from the sales of said counterfeit items, with all profits paid to him or, in the alternative, pay him $2 million for each and every counterfeit use of The Cure trademark, plus attorneys fees.
He pretty much HAS TO file this suit. Trademark holders not only have the right, but also the responsibility (OBLIGATION) to defend their trademark(s).
THE CURE Trademark has achieved tremendous fame and recognition, which has only added to the inherent distinctiveness of the mark. As such, the goodwill associated with THE CURE Trademark is of incalculable and inestimable value to Plaintiff.
I definitely buy that the goodwill associated w/ TC is of "inestimable value" to RS.
According to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) report, in 2021, CBP made over 27,000 seizures of goods with intellectual property rights (“IPR”) violations totaling over $3.3 billion, an increase of $2.0 billion from 2020.
Either things got much worse very quickly in terms of counterfeiting, or the CBP hired a bunch of people and made the seizure of counterfeit goods much more of a priority...
E-commerce store operators like Defendants are in constant communication with each other and regularly participate in QQ.com chat rooms and through websites such as sellerdefense.cn and kuajingvs.com regarding tactics for operating multiple accounts, evading detection, pending litigation, and potential new lawsuits.
Dirty scammers.
Good on him for doing this. I hate, hate, hate Amazon, etc. with a burning passion. They take for granted they can walk all over everyone so I'm happy to see someone holding their ass(es) to the fire.
I hope he prevails. I don't see how he couldn't but we all know how things can have a funny way of turning out when corporate interests are at stake. Sic 'em, The Cure™.
I saw this story last week in a pay-walled publication so I couldn't read it in full until now. Thanks for the intricate details. I've asked about our forum banner which I hope isn't in breach. Particularly as we don't & never would, market/ sell anything under The Cure trademark without explicit written permission.
I've asked about our forum banner which I hope isn't in breach. Particularly as we don't & never would, market/ sell anything under The Cure trademark without explicit written permission.
You better get that $2,000,000 dollar cheque written out...
Now this article popped up in my google alerts today (from two sources). Pretty sure this isn't an official store.
Looking at the wording on their site I would concur. They're doing everything they can to infer it's official without actually saying it & showing proof. Sort of insinuating that each work is produced by an artist and it's their work.... and as such it's them that's liable for any infringement. And $20 for a pin badge wtf!!!!
Now this article popped up in my google alerts today (from two sources). Pretty sure this isn't an official store.
Looking at the wording on their site I would concur. They're doing everything they can to infer it's official without actually saying it & showing proof. Sort of insinuating that each work is produced by an artist and it's their work.... and as such it's them that's liable for any infringement. And $20 for a pin badge wtf!!!!
Looks like some random AI pulls for the products on the site... they clearly don't know what official "The Cure" merchandise is...
Looking at the wording on their site I would concur. They're doing everything they can to infer it's official without actually saying it & showing proof. Sort of insinuating that each work is produced by an artist and it's their work.... and as such it's them that's liable for any infringement. And $20 for a pin badge wtf!!!!
Looks like some random AI pulls for the products on the site... they clearly don't know what official "The Cure" merchandise is...
I did think some of the offerings looked odd. It was only the other day my daughter was explaining how AI is being use to create graphics (old codger here & not up to speed on some of this stuff) and yes it does look like someone has put a cure images google search into AI and let it spit everything out. I also noticed while looking at the site the head office was located in the US but their 'warehouse' was in China. Classic thing I've seen with a lot of companies; especially from China, is to rent an address in the target country or even just give an address to make it look legit and get around location blocks and algorithm/search weeding. The address they give doesn't actually exist. The street does and it's a ramshackle group of 'houses' not much better than trailer park.
Looks like some random AI pulls for the products on the site... they clearly don't know what official "The Cure" merchandise is...
I did think some of the offerings looked odd. It was only the other day my daughter was explaining how AI is being use to create graphics (old codger here & not up to speed on some of this stuff) and yes it does look like someone has put a cure images google search into AI and let it spit everything out. I also noticed while looking at the site the head office was located in the US but their 'warehouse' was in China. Classic thing I've seen with a lot of companies; especially from China, is to rent an address in the target country or even just give an address to make it look legit and get around location blocks and algorithm/search weeding. The address they give doesn't actually exist. The street does and it's a ramshackle group of 'houses' not much better than trailer park.
Agreed. It is super depressing to see that sites like this exist, and from what I understand it's nearly impossible to take them down because all the shenanigans with "International" corporations rights. Does not surprise me at all that this particular site gives a bogus US address – there are abosultely no repercussions for doing so.
I did think some of the offerings looked odd. It was only the other day my daughter was explaining how AI is being use to create graphics (old codger here & not up to speed on some of this stuff) and yes it does look like someone has put a cure images google search into AI and let it spit everything out. I also noticed while looking at the site the head office was located in the US but their 'warehouse' was in China. Classic thing I've seen with a lot of companies; especially from China, is to rent an address in the target country or even just give an address to make it look legit and get around location blocks and algorithm/search weeding. The address they give doesn't actually exist. The street does and it's a ramshackle group of 'houses' not much better than trailer park.
Agreed. It is super depressing to see that sites like this exist, and from what I understand it's nearly impossible to take them down because all the shenanigans with "International" corporations rights. Does not surprise me at all that this particular site gives a bogus US address – there are abosultely no repercussions for doing so.
I think the easiest way to interrupt them, if not stop them is to go to the payment processors. They seem to only take paypal (or from the UK anyway) and selling counterfeit gear is clearly against paypal's ToU.
However I'm pretty sure as soon as the account was closed they'd use another account. It would however be quite interesting if they had a lot of money resting in their paypal and that was confiscated and handed over to the cure.
I think it needs govts to be more pro-active with TM/IP protection and payment processors to be pro-active when issues are identified (rather than fob offs), taking swift action against them and measures to prevent it happening again.
I did think some of the offerings looked odd. It was only the other day my daughter was explaining how AI is being use to create graphics (old codger here & not up to speed on some of this stuff) and yes it does look like someone has put a cure images google search into AI and let it spit everything out. I also noticed while looking at the site the head office was located in the US but their 'warehouse' was in China. Classic thing I've seen with a lot of companies; especially from China, is to rent an address in the target country or even just give an address to make it look legit and get around location blocks and algorithm/search weeding. The address they give doesn't actually exist. The street does and it's a ramshackle group of 'houses' not much better than trailer park.
Agreed. It is super depressing to see that sites like this exist, and from what I understand it's nearly impossible to take them down because all the shenanigans with "International" corporations rights. Does not surprise me at all that this particular site gives a bogus US address – there are abosultely no repercussions for doing so.
I went to a clothes store in Turkey a few years ago & they sold all the major designer labels. At least they had the decency to have a sign on the windows saying "genuine fake".
Agreed. It is super depressing to see that sites like this exist, and from what I understand it's nearly impossible to take them down because all the shenanigans with "International" corporations rights. Does not surprise me at all that this particular site gives a bogus US address – there are abosultely no repercussions for doing so.
I went to a clothes store in Turkey a few years ago & they sold all the major designer labels. At least they had the decency to have a sign on the windows saying "genuine fake".