eBay removed my listing due to patent issue

I listed an item from Chinavasion on eBay only to have it removed a few days later, claiming that the patent for the item belongs to some Australian company.

In any case, the listing was removed. What's troubling is that the same item is being sold by many other sellers where I can see have made sales with it for months. I don't understand why my listing was the one to be removed, I contacted the Australian company through the link that eBay gave me and now waiting for their response.

This is the third post regarding having trouble with having Chinavision products being pulled from ebay in the last couple of days, so something serious is going on.

Will be very interested to hear what the Australian company has to say.

Yes, been seeing a lot about problems members are having with products they got from Chinavasion. But the thing is Chinavasion is supposedly selling NO-brand products. So it's quite puzzling why listings are being removed.

Inon, Hi. Have you tried reaching Chinavasion about this? Maybe you could also check with them about the claim eBay made on the patent being from an Australian company.

Here's something they have in the FAQ section that may somehow help:

Link hidden: Login to view

Cheers!

This is chinavasion's response:


Dear Inon,

Thank you for contacting Chinavasion.

We cannot comment on the decisions of eBay or accept any liability in such decisions
- We contend there is no valid IPR case to prevent our distribution of the original cellphone watch products sourced from our China factories

- Since we are a wholesaler, not a factory / product developer, we are not in a position to patent or certificate the products we sell. Such responsibilities lie with the manufacturers we source from, and in the majority of cases they are manufacturing unbranded public mould or unique products. We confirm to the best of our ability that such products are not infringing any international IPR or licence restrictions, and in the event that there is a valid complaint raised we will investigate and take the appropriate action.

- In this particular case, since eBay has taken action regarding these cellphone watch products, we will accept return of unsold products with no restocking fees. However this is a goodwill action and does not imply any acceptance of liability or fault in the alleged IPR case.

Thank you.


Best regards,

Marita

Your Chinavasion.com Customer Account Manager

If they are non branded products then I don't see what the problem is unless chinavasions suppliers have some contract with the australian company!

I also had an item removed from my listings. Item Moon Jar - Solar Power LED Mood Light. Then it goes to say.....'The rights owner, Suck UK Ltd, notified eBay that this listing violates intellectual property rights'. I then contacted Suck UK and this is what they had to say...'Suck UK, in partnership with Tobias Wong, is the designer, manufacturer and distributor of the Sun Jar. It comes in three separate colours of Yellow, Blue and Pink.
The products you are selling are illegal copies and most likely sourced from China. The relationship with SUCK UK and eBay is on a much higher level than the superficial state that you have
been made to think. Every claim I make has to be back up with proof. They have worked with us on several successful legal cases against both retailers and suppliers of fake SUCK UK products.The Law:
Design Right applies to original, non-commonplace designs of the shape or configuration of products. It exists to prevent unauthorised copying. Design Right is automatic and registration is not required.

Our ownership of the intellectual property:
There are many published international press features and other proofs of ownership that pre-date your counterfeit item. For clarification the article in Vogue magazine is attached again. The issue is dated December 2006. It has our name next to it. You will not find any prior published reference to this product.Patents are for inventions (Spark Plugs and Fluorescent tubes).
The Sun Jar is not an invention, it is not patentable.

However the design of the Sun Jar (it's appearance, shape and configuration of parts) is protected by 'Design Right'

Design Right applies to original, non-commonplace designs of the shape or configuration of products. It exists to prevent unauthorised copying. Design Right is automatic and registration is not required.

This European law also extends to Hong Kong and there is a similar system in place to protect intellectual property in the USA (Not for 'inventions' but protection of 'design').

All of the products that you refer to are illegal copies and we are challenging all of these. Regardless of where you are purchasing your product (and it is not through our trusted supplier) they are illegal counterfeit items. Regardless that you are one of many breaking the law, you are still breaking the law.

There is no doubt that the counterfeit product is a direct copy of our original design - it is virtually identical in every respect.

It would be possible to create a solar lamp with a different appearance and configuration of parts - this would not be a copy'

Then this is what Chinavasion has to say...'To our knowledge there is no IPR issue with the products you mention.

Complaining to ebay about a trumped up IPR claim is a well known trick by some ebay sellers to get rid of their competitors on the auction site.

Ebay typically grants any claims to avoid the costs of following up in any detail.

You can contest the ebay decision and request detailed information.

If you get further information such as actual trademark or patent documentation we will be glad to have a look at it for you'.

He said, she said!

Not really sure how this mess can be sorted out. Trouble is everything that has been said there is quite true.

If the products are infringing on the copyright holders rights, then ebay has to act. Having said that, are that acting on good advice or just jumping at shadows as these fake reports are growing amongst competitors.

The way it is going there will be a case for Chinavision to approach ebay to sort the situation out with their products, because there certainly seems to be a focus on them of late.

It gets back to the three R's. Research Research Research... I don't intend to do peoples research for them but this has been raised before on this forum regarding phone watches. I'm no expert but I found it.

I sell 99% Chinavasion Products on Ebay and other platforms NOT ONCE have I had any issues arising from IP rights or copies or pirate phones what ever you wish to call them. I'm not touting my horn but maybe people need to look at how they sell products on Ebay and what descriptions and pics they use to do so. This is an Ebay originating BS problem for some reason they do this occasionally to sellers without any rhyme or reason.

How do we know this ? I have sold those watches or should I say dropshipped them on Ebay hehehe with no ramifications also these so called illegal items as Ebay terms them came into Australia and were opened and viewed by Aussie Customs (normal) they noticed they were unbranded and said no worries mate ! Ebay do not make the laws of importation and exportation worldwide , even though their massive ego would have you think otherwise, so if Customs have no issues with items Bob's your uncle.

In terms of contracts etc etc the only contract that matters is a exclusivity agreement or distributorship. Could there be one with a company in Australia ? ...possibly. If this was the case the manufacturer has breached his own exclusivity agreement by selling to Chinavasion knowing full well they sell worldwide. Chinavasion's position as stated by Marita is correct and decries any such exclusivity agreement in existence. If one existed Chinavasion would have had to put up an exclusion to items being bought or going to Australia which isn't hard to do so why create aggravation for themselves when the fix is so easy.

Chinavasion are not small in terms of turn over and thankfully nothing like MK Products easily seen by their prompt reply.
This is an Ebay BEAT UP to suit their weird purposes.

fight it!! keep emailing and emailing and emailing and (well you get it) the eBay Generic Reply Geek Squad. the claimed 'rights' owner has to provide NO proof to get your item pulled. One thing you may be able to do (once you are able to relist) is NOT export. I ran into this problem with a company that had bought the rights to the word (just the word) 'video' in a UK publication journal and were going around dropping ebayers like flies. I won that one after like 10 weeks and now sell at will. I am now going back through it again because a company 'owns' the same initals to some initials used in one of my listings that isnt even a related product so I just got yanked (like this morning) yet again and itll probably take 10 more weeks to clear this up. Dont give up... fight the man. It's like eating a brick... hard as hell but it can be done. Also, you can request a form (not advertised, but may be hinted at around your 6th round of emails) by eBays VERO team that allows you to declare that you are not selling trademarked property by penalty of perjury so make em send you that too.

Good tips Voodoo, but regarding waiting the 6 weeks for the form, you can circumvent by doing your own state dec and forwarding, however just bare in mind that it is a legal dicument.......so be very sure of you facts befroe you start making claims on a legal document because that can come back and bit you an the ruckus BIG TIME!

dicument befroe bit

Fudjj
Was it party time when you did this lol ??
If so why wasn't I invited lol.

Or are you a Kiwi...LOL

I need new fingers, or at least the ability to type might be nice : (

really... im pretty convinced im in the right but surprisingly im actually not having to hunt this rights owner down. Heckler & Koch from germany are the ones who filed the complaint and they have emailed me back the same day I contacted them with the email ebay gave me!! However ebay is up to their usual tactics stating that there is no recourse or counter claim available for a report of trademark violation. Still beats me how you can have a blind one-way policy but thats how they are running it I guess. Good to know about making your own doc though, ill keep it in reserve for the next time! I'd still like to get VERO's phone number though... i guess email only keeps the geeks safe from guys like me.

Yeah, what I should have said is a dialogue has to be establishes frost, but a stat dec is a legal document, and will hold as much weight as any form ebay asks you to fill out somewhat later in the process.

I have no idea how effective that would be, but at least it may get others to the stage you got to a lot quicker than using the process they put you through before indicating that there was in fact a form stating your claim was even an available option.

I too have had listings pulled from ebay not chinavasion's items. I'm still on probation for 3 more days. My ebay compliance on my dashboard is a RED very low. My listing were Native American Style Items. I searched through that catagory and found several listings that were the very same thing that I had pulled. They were even from the same company that I was buying from. I email ebay about it. Their reply was the wording I used made veiwers assume that they were buying real Native American artifacts. FOR $3.00 com'n. I relisted using the term Southwestern Style. And it was allowed. But I think it was because of my ID (cheyeneman) that made people presume that the article was real, If they did believe that. But since then I have been drifting more towards other sites. I really have fun on Bonanzle and their plumdrop forum.

Wow!! I had the same issues with native american and civil war items.

You have to make sure to list in the right category and state in the same text size as the other text in your listing that the items are replicas.


I stated it in the title bar and got in trouble because I didnt state it in the text of the listing.

well... pulled another one out!! worked it out with H&K and im back up and running, just a little typo snafu. but no thanks to ebay, they even sent me an automated form response to the forwarded email from the company i was going against when they said i could relist. i really cant believe the CS these guys have. i guess in a way it protects them but jeez... after 5 (10, 15???) emails you think it would flag something that says hey, we need to talk to this guy!
great advise on all the other stuff you guys gave me for future reference and for anyone else for that matter. and i would still say if you think you are in the right email, email, email, email!!

just read your post cheyeneman and $3 native american items is a hoot!! dont worry about your ebay compliance rating or probation, been there done that. mines back to red after this one and I won it! i also had the same problem selling a dimiled rocket launcher that started at .99 cents. i do believe that if i had a real rocket launcher for sale it would fare better than 99 cents. makes you wonder who is on the payroll.