PlayStation Lawsuit | Sony Trademark Infringement Action
The attorneys at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC have navigated the e-commerce sphere for years. We’ve helped e-commerce sellers get through many tough intellectual property lawsuits and issues. Our team knows exactly how troublesome a trademark infringement lawsuit can be, for example. As such, we prioritize empathy and openness of communication when interacting with our clients. Your business is your baby and it needs protection! However large or small your online selling operation is, Stockman & Poropat, PLLC is ready to proceed full steam ahead!
Don’t make the mistake of diminishing the seriousness of the newest Sony Interactive Entertainment trademark lawsuit. This federal action, naming you and other Defendants, is legitimate and must be addressed. Unfortunately, the Sony lawsuit will not resolve itself! You’ll need to respond to the court to avoid a Default Judgment. The Plaintiff is a huge company with loads of resources at their disposal. The Defendants likely don’t have the same type of resources. Which is why it’s important for your business to consider an intellectual property attorney.
The Trademark Lawsuit May Disrupt Your Business
Why has perhaps the worst fear of any e-commerce seller come true? Well, we’re exaggerating a bit. A trademark infringement lawsuit may not be the worst fear. But, it’s certainly a disruption that can cause frustration and cost money. Not to mention time! To sum it up, Sony filed the lawsuit because the brand documented what they perceive to be an overwhelming amount of counterfeit sales. In some instances, a seller is named as a Defendant in IP infringement lawsuits due to no explicit fault of their own. You may have recently sold PlayStation products, maybe not knowing they were unauthorized in terms of branding. Something like that may explain your status as a Defendant. Each seller’s case is unique to them and their business practices! Our team at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC can help you figure it out.
Because this is a Schedule A infringement lawsuit, the Plaintiff will get a temporary restraining order against the named sellers. The court usually approves these injunctions because the Plaintiff establishes to a reasonable degree that counterfeiting occurred. It’s Sony’s aim to halt the amount of unauthorized sales of the brand’s goods. Due to loss of revenue and damage to their reputation. It’s the allegations themselves that pave the way for the temporary restraining order. And, this will freeze the seller accounts of the Defendants. If you’re looking into directly settling with Sony, know that most Defendants who take this route end up with only 60% of their frozen money! This is reason enough to consider the investment in an attorney worthwhile. Our lawyers at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC will put our superior level of experience in e-commerce to help you!
Why Are Sellers Being Sued by Sony Interactive Entertainment?
What about these allegations of trademark infringement? Where is Sony getting the information from on which they’ve built their belief that counterfeit sales actually happened? The legal complaint tied to the case details the allegations made by the Plaintiff. Defendants should read this document thoroughly, which you can download at the end of this page. Below, we’ll include a selection of Sony’s allegations of IP infringement:
Defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using the PLAYSTATION Trademarks 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 websites relevant to consumer searches for Genuine PlayStation® Products. Other e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases omit using the PLAYSTATION Trademarks 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 Genuine PlayStation® Products.
Counterfeiters such as Defendants typically operate under multiple seller aliases and payment accounts so that they can continue operation despite SIE’s or the SIE Affiliates’ enforcement. E-commerce store operators like Defendants maintain off-shore bank accounts and regularly move funds from their financial accounts to off-shore accounts outside the jurisdiction of this Court to avoid payment of any monetary judgment awarded to SIE.
Defendants’ unauthorized use of the PLAYSTATION Trademarks in connection with the advertising, distribution, offering for sale, and sale of Counterfeit Products, including the sale of Counterfeit Products into the United States, including Illinois, is likely to cause and has caused confusion, mistake, and deception by and among consumers and is irreparably harming SIE.
Sony Claims Sellers Acted as a Counterfeit Network
As we’ve seen in the selection excerpted above, the Plaintiff has noted several alleged actions engaged in by the collective Defendants. And, these Defendants are being sued collectively – which is what makes this a Schedule A lawsuit. It’s common in trademark infringement actions that sellers are sued as a group, because brands often claim that sellers have acted as a network of counterfeiters (accurate, true, or not). This PlayStation infringement action is no different! The lawsuit also mentions that the sales allegedly took place on various marketplaces. They include the big ones like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, and others such as Etsy, Temu, TikTok, DHgate, and Wish.com.
The Plaintiff, Sony, has filed this trademark infringement action to combat the alleged sale of counterfeit goods by e-commerce operators. The value of the PlayStation trademark(s) is the cause for the lawsuit. Sony wants to guard its brand from losing any further revenue due to unauthorized sales. They also intend to maintain the reputation the brand has established with consumers over the years. The allegations are made up of multiple claims that indicate the sellers acted together to more efficiently sell counterfeit goods. If you’re a Defendant, it’ll benefit you to retain an intellectual property attorney to save you the most in terms of time and money!
Contact our team at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC today for a free initial consultation!
Download the legal complaint below:
Up next we will be discussing the Atari Trademark Infringement Action.
