BBC Bluey Trademark and Copyright Lawsuit | Online Sellers Sued

BBC Studios Distribution is suing online sellers for the unauthorized sale of Bluey products! To gain insight into the details of the lawsuit, we turn to the legal complaint. All of the Plaintiff’s allegations are included in the document. Defendants should read the legal complaint carefully to understand the claims of trademark island copyright infringement. Here follows a selection of the legal complaint to give you an impression of the legal action: 

Many Defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using the BLUEY 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 Bluey Products. Other e-commerce stores operating under Seller Aliases omit using the BLUEY 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 Bluey Products.

Unauthorized Bluey Products for sale by the Seller Aliases bear similar irregularities and indicia of being unauthorized to one another, suggesting that the Unauthorized Bluey Products were manufactured by and come from a common source and that Defendants are interrelated. 

Defendants, without any authorization or license from Bluey, have knowingly and willfully used and continue to use the BLUEY Trademarks and/or copies of the Bluey Copyrighted Work in connection with the advertisement, distribution, offering for sale, and sale of Unauthorized Bluey Products into the United States and Illinois over the Internet. 

Rely on Stockman & Poropat, PLLC For Resolution

When figuring out how to best resolve the issue, affected online sellers may attempt to settle with the Plaintiff, not using a lawyer. The Defendants should weigh all of their options prior to jumping into a direct settlement with the BBC. You don’t want to lose out on keeping your money! Sellers may find that directly settling with the Plaintiff means moving past the lawsuit as speedily as possible. Which could be true. At the same time, the Defendants are likely to walk away with only about 60% of the money affected by the lawsuit if they don’t work with an intellectual property attorney. Stockman & Poropat, PLLC is here to help! 

How will sellers’ funds get affected by the latest Bluey trademark and copyright lawsuit? The BBC will have the court approve a temporary restraining order. When this happens, the injunction will establish a freeze on sellers’ online accounts. The Defendants won’t have access to the money in their accounts after the restraining order is approved. As with other Schedule A suits, the Plaintiff in this case wants to prevent further counterfeiting. Now, not all of the sellers will be impacted in the same exact way, because each e-commerce operator’s business is different. No matter if your business is healthy enough to withstand the lawsuit’s blow or not, you’ll still have to deal with the restraining order. To resolve the matter, you can rely on our team at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC.

Avoid a Default Judgment by Responding to the Lawsuit!

If you’ve been named in the BBC lawsuit regarding counterfeit Bluey products, you need to respond. Any seller who doesn’t respond opens their business up to a potential Default Judgment. And, you’ll want to avoid that outcome because it’ll cost more money and is very troublesome to overturn. Moreover, if you don’t respond and the court issues a Default Judgment, all of the money in your frozen account could be awarded to the BBC. Make sure you respond! 

The BBC Claims Bluey Trademark and Copyright Infringement

The owner of the Bluey trademarks and copyrights filed this federal lawsuit for several key reasons. Among them, the Plaintiff asserts that the Defendants willingly offered unauthorized Bluey goods to consumers in the United States. To ensure the sellers were successful, BBC states the Defendants created a network of counterfeiters. Through this alleged network of counterfeiters, sellers were able to discuss effective tactics for committing infringement and not getting caught. It’s the financial result of these supposed actions that resulted in the lawsuit. To stop sellers from offering infringing Bluey goods, the BBC is pressing forward with the action.

Ultimately, whatever your level of involvement in the alleged trademark and copyright infringement, the attorneys at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC want to protect your assets. Schedule A suits can cause complications for e-commerce businesses and may be incredibly frustrating. If you work with our team, we will use our extraordinary amount of experience in this area of law to get you an appropriate resolution! 

This new BBC lawsuit concerning the sale of Bluey goods isn’t something any named seller should ignore! Again, each Defendant’s implication in the alleged unlawful actions will vary. Some sellers may be able to clear their name of any wrongdoing, while others may actually need to work out a settlement of some kind. It all truly depends on the specific details of your e-commerce operation. Don’t pretend the lawsuit isn’t going to get in the way of your business, because it will! To get the outcome you deserve and to save time and money, rely on us at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC. 

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 newest Mattel Trademark Infringement Action.