Toyota Lawsuit Against Online Sellers | Allegations of Trademark Infringement

There’s a new Toyota lawsuit against online sellers filed in federal court! The global automotive company is suing e-commerce operators for intellectual property infringement. This case is similar to many other Schedule A lawsuits citing counterfeit sales by sellers. What are the allegations that Toyota is making? There are several commonly referenced unlawful actions detailed in the legal complaint. If you’re a seller who requires help navigating this situation, keep on reading! 

The Toyota lawsuit against online sellers identifies multiple reasons for why they’re filing a lawsuit. Below, we’ll share just a selection of those infringement claims, excerpted from the legal complaint:

• Toyota has identified numerous fully interactive, e- commerce stores offering Counterfeit Toyota Products on online marketplace platforms such as Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Alibaba, Wish.com, Walmart, Etsy, DHgate, and Temu, including the e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases.
• This is a trademark infringement action against Defendants based on their unauthorized use in commerce of counterfeit imitations of the federally registered Toyota Trademarks in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, and/or advertising of infringing goods.
• Defendants’ activities constitute willful trademark infringement and counterfeiting under Section 32 of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1114. 
• The injuries and damages sustained by Plaintiff have been directly and approximately caused by Defendants’ wrongful reproduction, use, advertisement, promotion, offering to sell, and sale of Counterfeit Toyota Products. 
• Many Defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using one or more Toyota 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 Toyota Products. 

Why Is Toyota Suing Online Sellers?!

Is Toyota just a big bully who wants to push around the little online seller for fun? That’s not what the Plaintiff says! The main reason Toyota says it’s suing e-commerce operators is because of trademark infringement. The result of the alleged infringement is damage to the brand and reputation that is Toyota. The company states that the lawsuit is the means by which they’re protecting their value. Furthermore, the Plaintiff believes that the Defendants are all working together to actively sell counterfeit Toyota goods to consumers. 

Now, what should sellers actually do once they’ve learned that they are a Defendant? A primary concern is providing a response to the court. You need to respond to the court or you could face a Default Judgment. Are you not familiar with what the response should consist of? That’s the next and most sensible step: speak with and then hire an intellectual property attorney! Some sellers will have to negotiate with the Plaintiff. Those negotiations could range from determining a seller’s true identity, to attempting to prove that certain claims aren’t true, to reaching settlements. Throughout, your lawyer will be especially effective. 

Hire an Intellectual Property Attorney, Don’t Go It Alone

Toyota could very well go ahead and try to work out settlements with the sellers themselves. While that’s perfectly legal, it may not result in a fair or substantial outcome for the Defendants. See, with Schedule A lawsuits, major corporations like Toyota seek to negotiate settlements that work for them, not you. For sure, a direct settlement could mean the end of your involvement in the federal infringement lawsuit. Likewise, it could also lead to sellers getting less money than what they deserve. To be more specific, if you settle with the Plaintiff without an attorney to work with you, you’ll likely get less of your own money! 

What do we mean by less of your own money? Well, we can break that down for you. When a Schedule A infringement lawsuit is filed, the Plaintiff will predictably seek a temporary restraining order. Once that happens, the court will approve what essential amounts to sellers getting locked out of their seller accounts. The money collected into those accounts by selling Toyota products is part of the lawsuit. The Plaintiff doesn’t want any further abuse of their intellectual property, so they’ll seek the restraining order. 

Understand Your Rights, Take Action, Find a Resolution

As we said, the legal complaint breaks down the list of allegations of trademark infringement they say the Defendants engaged in. Some of the named sellers may know right away that certain of those claims are inaccurate. Yet, they can’t just remove themselves from the list of Defendants. Guilty of the infringement Toyota claims or not, all of the sellers will be affected by the restraining order. That is, until you hire an intellectual property attorney and work on developing a creative legal solution! 

With the restraining order in place, sellers will not be able to touch the money in the impacted seller account. It may apply to the money earned from sales of Toyota products or other goods. Many sellers struggle when this occurs because they’re in need of a particular cash flow to run their business and make profits. This is where the investment that is an intellectual property attorney comes into the picture. You’ll want to hire an attorney so that you can lessen the overall damage possibly caused by the restraining order. Also, they can help clear you of the unlawful allegations and/or get you a fair settlement, if you so wish. 

Contact our incredible team at Stockman & Poropat, PLLC today for a free initial consultation!

Download the legal complaint below:

Up next we will be discussing the Eagles Trademark Infringement Lawsuit.