Online Sellers Sued in Nat King Cole Trademark Lawsuit

Iconic NKC IP LLC has filed a lawsuit against online sellers! They own the famous musician Nat King Cole trademark. The Plaintiff contends that multiple online sellers have sold trademark infringing Nat King Cole products to consumers in the United States. Specifically, the Nat King Cole trademark lawsuit states:

Defendants facilitate sales by designing the e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases so that they appear to unknowing consumers to be authorized online retailers, outlet stores, or wholesalers. E-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases appear sophisticated and accept payment in U.S. dollars and/or funds from U.S. bank accounts via credit cards, Alipay, Amazon Pay, and/or PayPal. 

E-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases often include content and images that make it very difficult for consumers to distinguish such stores from an authorized retailer. Plaintiff has not licensed or authorized Defendants to use the NAT KING COLE Trademark, and none of the Defendants are authorized retailers of genuine Nat King Cole products. 

Defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using the NAT KING COLE Trademark without authorization within the content, text, and/or meta tags of their e- commerce stores to attract various search engines crawling the Internet looking for e-commerce stores relevant to consumer searches for Nat King Cole products. 

Other e-commerce stores operating under Seller Aliases omit using the NAT KING COLE Trademark in the item title to evade enforcement efforts while using strategic item titles and descriptions that will trigger their listings when consumers are searching for Nat King Cole products.

How Online Sellers Will Be Affected by the Counterfeit Allegations

The counterfeit Nat King Cole goods were sold on various online marketplaces. Such as Amazon, Temu, eBay, Etsy, Wish.com, Alibaba, AliExpress, Walmart, and DHgate. If any Defendant is wondering what to do, first of all you need to respond to the lawsuit! How do you ensure your response is appropriate? You may want to hire an intellectual property attorney. 

Definitely don’t just ignore the notice of the lawsuit and pretend it’s not real. To avoid the actuality of the lawsuit will likely create a larger problem for your business. It could mean the forfeiture of all the money in your account(s). Or, it could fast track you to a Default Judgment, which is very difficult to overturn. 

The accuracy of the allegations made by the Plaintiff against the sellers may vary. The claims of counterfeit are legitimate. The extent to which they apply to every single named seller is to be determined. The reason the lawsuit was filed is because the owner of the Nat King Cole trademark believes counterfeiting took place. So much so that the value of their intellectual property was damaged. Of course, the Plaintiff is entitled to file these claims and seek compensation for the alleged damages. In the same way, sellers who are affected by the lawsuit are permitted to obtain their own legal counsel to respond. And you should! Your attorney can work with you to break down the exact meaning and implication of the counterfeit allegations. They can respond for you and then negotiate with the Plaintiff if necessary. 

Settlements and Schedule A Infringement Lawsuits…

This particular lawsuit is a Schedule A infringement case. In recent years, there’s been an increase in these sorts of lawsuits against online sellers. It allows Plaintiffs to sue a group of online sellers at the same time, claiming infringement across the board. A big part of Schedule A lawsuits is settlements. The Plaintiff uses the nature of the lawsuit, being filed against many sellers, to negotiate settlements. They do so with as many Defendants as they possibly can. This expedites the legal process. And, the timeline for regaining their alleged losses. It also allows the Plaintiff to maintain an overall edge. 

Frustratingly, settlements in Schedule A lawsuits don’t usually work out in the Defendants’ favor! Some sellers may want to just accept a settlement and move on as quickly as they can. That’s understandable! But, you could be unnecessarily losing lots and lots of your money. Rather than just giving the money you’ve earned by selling goods online to the Plaintiff because of allegations, you can rely on an attorney to negotiate a favorable settlement for you. 

How to Address the Temporary Restraining Order

The biggest disruption that accompanies trademark infringement lawsuits is the temporary restraining order (TRO). Once the court approves the TRO, the Defendants’ selling accounts will be frozen. What that means is sellers won’t have access to the funds in their seller accounts. This could be very serious for many online sellers and even place them in the crosshairs of bankruptcy. As a seller, you need every dollar you earned to stay in business. The best way to negotiate with the Plaintiff to lift the restraining order? Get yourself an intellectual property attorney! 

Sure enough, hiring an attorney will cost you money. The cost of an attorney pales in comparison to the cost of not hiring one and then later facing even more hurdles with this lawsuit! In essence, if you want to save as much of your money as you can and get back to your regular e-commerce operation, a lawyer is your best option. 

Contact our team at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC today for a free consultation! We look forward to helping you with the infringement lawsuit affecting your business.

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