![]() ![]() “It started as a normal way to defend intellectual-property rights,” says Ning Zhang, an attorney in the US who has represented Sun and other sellers in similar situations. But over the years, Zhang says, she has witnessed the IP violation claims getting increasingly baseless. Sellers like Sun feel the lawsuits are designed to take advantage of people who lack experience with the American justice system and face a language barrier. But as their businesses bloom, they are also learning hard lessons about adjusting to a different cultural and legal system. These practices are not unlawful, but some lawyers and academics believe they amount to taking advantage of the IP protection system.Ĭhinese sellers now make up the majority of third-party sellers on Amazon. The approach is so streamlined and structured, lawyers told MIT Technology Review, that firms can mass-produce the lawsuits, reusing filing templates and suing batch after batch of sellers. Lumping so many defendants together saves plaintiffs time and money when filing cases in federal courts. These cases are designed to protect IP holders from counterfeiters, who are much harder to trace and hold accountable in the era of e-commerce.īut in the US, these lawsuits have also become a lucrative business for the plaintiffs and their law firms. ![]() One thing they have in common is that multiple defendants are sued at once, and the defendants’ identities are kept hidden. It’s a new form of lawsuit-so new that it doesn’t have an official name yet. ![]() US law firms, particularly a handful based in Chicago, have been putting together mass intellectual-property cases like this one, suing hundreds of sellers on Amazon or other platforms at the same time for selling counterfeit goods. ![]()
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