Roku Sues for Trademark Infringement
As an e-commerce seller, your account(s) may have been hit with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) for selling Roku products to customers in the United States. Whether you are based in China or elsewhere, the billion-dollar audio and video equipment giant, Roku, has filed a lawsuit against a number of online sellers. The Roku lawsuit claims that the Defendants have knowingly and in an orchestrated fashion sold trademark infringing counterfeit goods.
If you are one of the e-commerce operators in the lawsuit, you should know that Roku is claiming the trademark infringement applies to the sale of “inferior imitations” of their products. The sale of the allegedly fake products took place on platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba, AliExpress, eBay, DHgate.com, Joom.com, Walmart.com, and Wish.com.
For the time being, the TRO may be preventing you from touching money your store earned via the sale of Roku products. Are the counterfeit claims valid or not? Currently, the court has not yet answered that question. However, the restraining order still impedes your ability to collect those earnings.
Roku Counterfeit Lawsuit
Let us settle what may possibly be a common misconception regarding trademark infringement lawsuits like this one. The decision to ignore the notice you received stating you are one of the Defendants is not a smart choice. If you choose to ignore the notice of the lawsuit, you are making an avoidable mistake. That decision could lead to a Default Judgment. Which means, the court deems you guilty of the alleged unlawful conduct, true or not. And if that happens, you will be responsible to pay Roku.
It is easy enough to manage this scenario, and frankly, it is a commonplace issue within the e-commerce world. What we recommend is that you respond to the notice. The response you provide to the Roku lawsuit allows you to avoid a Default Judgment. If you are not informed as to what the response should look like or include, no worries! We are here to assist you in that precise manner.
Online Sellers Sued by Roku
E-Commerce Stores Sued by Roku
As a Defendant, you may be asking yourself what the claims made against you are. This is a good question to ask!
Roku has submitted a series of alleged counterfeit claims. One of the central claims is that the Defendants are tricking unassuming consumers. How? They design their account(s) and stores so they appear as authorized. According to Roku, the sophistication of this deceptive behavior includes select “images and design elements.” These elements, apparently, closely resemble an authorized site, thus making it “very difficult for consumers to distinguish” the authenticity.
Furthermore, Roku states you and the other named online sellers integrate unauthorized “social media spamming” and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies into the counterfeiting operation. By doing so, the Defendants “misdirect consumers searching for genuine ROKU Products.”
The Roku lawsuit alleges that all of the Defendants make concerted efforts to hide their true identities by way of fake names and addresses. Then, they make new online stores and marketplace accounts to avoid getting caught and/or shut down. Evasion tactics, per the suit, also include use of rogue servers located outside the US and off-shore bank accounts. The Defendants’ aim is to escape accountability in the event of a lawsuit, like this one.
Roku Seeks Injunctive Relief
The following language taken directly from the Complaint summarizes Roku’s trademark infringement lawsuit:
Defendants are improperly advertising, marketing and/or selling unauthorized and illegal products (the “Counterfeit Products”) either by reference to or embodying a mark that is identical or substantially identical to at least one of the various ROKU Trademarks, which causes further confusion and deception in the marketplace. The Defendants have created numerous fully interactive commercial internet stores operating under the online marketplace accounts.
Stockman & Poropat Will Fight For You
The team at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC will assess your exact e-commerce store situation during a free consultation. Our firm has offered effective and creative solutions to trademark infringement issues for a broad spectrum of online sellers around the world. We are deeply committed to finding resolutions and upholding a high standard of excellence. Contact us today! We look forward to developing a strategy just for you.
See below for a link to the complaint itself ⚖️
Up next we will be discussing Scheduled A Defendant’s Scheme: Chinese Sellers Targeted on Amazon.
