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24 December 2019TrademarksSarah Morgan

Seller’s fury over ‘outrageous’ Fjällräven complaint on Amazon

A third-party seller has accused Swedish outdoor clothing company Fjällräven of misusing Amazon.com’s IP complaint system to eliminate price competition.

In a complaint filed on Monday, December 23, at the US District Court the Southern District of New York, WhoIsCamera claimed that the case is about “greed disguised as ‘brand protection’”.

“Plaintiff brings this antitrust action following its commercial and financial ruination resulting from defendants’ successful conspiracy to exploit Amazon’s notice infringement protocols and thereby eliminate price competition—specifically, defendants’ libellous statements to Amazon predictably causing plaintiff’s expulsion from the Amazon marketplace,” said the claim.

The seller said it has routinely listed around 70 brand names on Amazon.com, and sold more than 500,000 units of product to customers. Fjällräven is allegedly the only IP owner to complaint to Amazon of counterfeiting on these products.

WhoIsCamera said that, as a direct result of IP complaints, its “once-thriving Amazon business is now a remnant of its former self”.

The claim alleged that Fjällräven only began complaining about WhoIsCamera’s sales when it came under Netrush’s influence in spring 2019. Netrush is a “retailer/agency hybrid” (according to its website) that partners with brands to sell their goods on Amazon and provides brand compliance services.

After this point, the Swedish company reportedly dealt WhoIsCamera a “death blow”, filing 16 IP complaints for Fjällräven products. WhoIsCamera was subsequently expelled from the Amazon platform.

“The only way to obtain a reprieve from this death blow was to obtain Fjällräven’s imprimatur. It is a fact of common knowledge that once an IP complaint is lodged with Amazon ... that Amazon’s policy is to not reverse an expulsion without a retraction or letter from the rights owner completely absolving the accused seller. This procedural quagmire is the fulcrum of the conspiracy at suit,” said WhoIsCamera.

The seller then attempted to speak with Fjällräven, but reportedly learnt that the person who had been named on the complaint as the rights owner was no longer employed by the Swedish company.

WhoIsCamera was allegedly expelled until December 5, 2019, after it had paid consultants more than $10,000 to get Amazon to hear “plaintiff’s explanation of Fjällräven’s outrageous conduct”.

It added: “The IP complaints, however, remain as a blight on plaintiff’s account ... an ever- present threat should adverse circumstances arise beyond plaintiff’s control, eg another unscrupulous seller’s IP complaint.”

Now, said the seller, its competition in the Fjällräven space has been eliminated and prices for Fjällräven backpacks have been stabilised at artificially high levels.

Attack on Amazon

But WhoIsCamera didn’t stop there, going on to attack Amazon over its own IP complaint system.

According to the seller, Amazon knows that many of the infringement complaints it receives from complaining sellers are “falsely premised upon the notion that grey market goods” may not be sold using IP belonging to a remote manufacturer or other producer.

Despite this, Amazon allegedly acts on these “ill-conceived” infringement complaints and stifles marketplace competition.

“The protocol is routine, institutionalised and at times lethal to competition and potential competition,” claimed WhoIsCamera.

Amazon.com is not named as a defendant in the suit.

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