E-Commerce Sellers Sued | Christian Dior Trademark Infringement Action
The global brand Christian Dior has filed a federal trademark infringement lawsuit in Illinois! The lawsuit is known as a “Schedule A” counterfeit action, which was filed due to intellectual property infringement. To be sure, similar lawsuits to this one filed by Christian Dior are somewhat a common occurrence for e-commerce sellers. So if you’ve sold Christian Dior products on marketplaces like Amazon, Wish.com, Walmart, Alibaba, Etsy, eBay, or others, that may explain why you’re being sued!
At Stockman & Poropat, PLLC, we aim to convey to online sellers how imperative it is to have legal counsel. And we’re not just saying that an attorney is important because we’re a law firm! It will be beneficial to the named online sellers to work with an intellectual property lawyer for several reasons. Among the top reasons is that you’ll want to develop a specific legal strategy that’s relevant to your e-commerce business. From the early stage when you’re submitting a response to the lawsuit, to negotiation, to settlement – we’ll be with you all the way!
Essentially, having an intellectual property attorney means you’ll improve your opportunity to save money. Not only that, you can also save your valuable time. Just how can one of our attorneys save you time and money? When our lawyers represent you, we’ll do everything we can to ensure you walk away from the lawsuit with the healthiest outcome. See, how it works is that Christian Dior has filed the lawsuit in federal court. The next step the brand will take is to have the court approve of a temporary restraining order.
Dior Believes Online Sellers Engaged in Counterfeiting
Christian Dior believes that the named online sellers have engaged in rampant counterfeiting. That belief is predicated on information that the Plaintiff has gathered, which led to the lawsuit. To prevent the Defendants from continuing this behavior, Christian Dior will have the court approve of a temporary injunction. The practical implication of the restraining order is that it will place a freeze on the sellers’ online accounts. Any money the Defendants earned from selling Christian Dior products in the past will be frozen – it will be inaccessible. Sometimes the TRO can also apply to money earned from the sale of other-branded goods, too. Therefore, the lawsuit can be quite disruptive and frustrating!
At the time the restraining order takes effect, some sellers may consider reaching a settlement with Christian Dior directly, not using legal counsel. You’re able to take that route, however, it might not be the most effective means for keeping your money. Why do we say this? Reports show that sellers in Schedule A infringement suits who settle directly only get to keep 60% of the money in their frozen account. Do you believe that walking away with just half of your funds is an equitable outcome? We would question whether or not that’s the case! This is legitimately why we stress that online sellers ought to retain counsel. With an attorney, you’ll be able to more likely keep a heftier amount of the money you already earned! Paying for an intellectual property lawyer now will save your business money over the long haul.
Did Sellers Conduct Business Unlawfully?
As a Defendant in the Christian Dior trademark infringement lawsuit, you’ve been accused of a few allegations of counterfeiting. The description of the infringement allegations may be found within the legal complaint tied to the lawsuit. The so-called “unlawful conduct” identified by the Plaintiff may or may not be applicable to you. Each of the Defendants’ implication in those activities, insofar as the infringement is concerned, will vary from seller to seller. No matter the depth or accuracy of the claims, all of the Defendants will be affected. Which is why an attorney is so incredibly useful!
Christian Dior’s Allegations of Infringement
To learn just what Christian Dior has alleged, we can look to the legal complaint (downloadable at the bottom of this page). Below, we’ll share a selection of those claims to give you a fuller view of the lawsuit and its allegations:
The success of the Dior brand has resulted in significant counterfeiting of the CHRISTIAN DIOR Trademarks. Consequently, Dior has a worldwide anti-counterfeiting program and regularly investigates suspicious e-commerce stores identified in proactive Internet sweeps and reported by consumers. In recent years, Dior has identified many fully interactive e- commerce stores offering Unauthorized Dior Products on online marketplace platforms such as Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Alibaba, Walmart, Wish.com, DHgate, Temu, and TikTok, including the e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases.
Many Defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using the CHRISTIAN DIOR 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 Dior Products.
Counterfeiters such as Defendants typically operate under multiple seller aliases and payment accounts so that they can continue operation in spite of Dior’s 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 Dior.
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 General Motors Trademark Infringement Action.
