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10 February 2017Copyright

Alibaba urges brands to boycott agencies filing false IP claims

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has urged brands to boycott intellectual property agencies that file false complaints to “badger” and “blackmail” merchants on its online platforms.

Alibaba published a blog post on its news site, Alizila, on Wednesday, February 8, naming Hangzhou Wangwei Technology as an “abuser” of the IP rights reporting system on Alibaba’s online shopping website Taobao.

Alibaba said it would no longer process IP claims lodged by the agency across its online platforms and “urged” anyone using the agency to stop using its services.

The decision to stop processing IP claims from Hangzhou Wangwei stemmed from an investigation by Alibaba’splatform governance team.

The team found that the agency had filed complaints against “thousands” of merchants across Alibaba’s platforms and multiple product segments.

“Since 2015, Hangzhou Wangwei has withdrawn over 60% of its complaints after counter-appeals from merchants. That, the platform governance team determined, was a rate well above the norm for platform complaints,” said the blog post.

Alibaba also claimed it had evidence suggesting Hangzhou Wangwei may have worked with distributors to lodge complaints against the distributors’ competitors to try to shut down their channels.

Malicious complaints, according to the platform governance team, account for 24% of the total complaints processed by Alibaba’s IP protection platform.

Alibaba added that it regularly contacts community members, partners, law enforcement and even rivals to mitigate fraud and counterfeits.

According to the blog post, Alibaba fields complaints from rights owners and “proactively polices” and removes counterfeit goods.

The e-commerce company also hands out penalties to merchants who have broken platform rules, including IP violations.

In June last year, Alibaba launched its new counterfeit system, called the IP Joint-Force System, which it said streamlined communications and collaboration to help improve IP enforcement online.

Last month, the company also sued two vendors who used Taobao to sell fake Swarovski watches.

Alibaba claimed that it was the first instance of an internet platform taking a counterfeiter to court in China.

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5 July 2016   E-commerce website Alibaba has launched a new system that it says streamlines communications and collaboration to help improve intellectual property enforcement online.
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4 January 2017   Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group has sued two alleged online counterfeit sellers, in what the business claims is the first instance of an internet platform taking a counterfeiter to court in China.