Lawsuit Seeks to Thwart Sale of Fake Canon Chargers, Batteries on Amazon Store
Amazon, Canon USA and Canon’s Japanese parent filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle to “permanently prevent and enjoin” 29 defendants from selling counterfeits of Canon-branded camera chargers and batteries on the Amazon store. The defendants, through their illegal actions, breached their contracts with Amazon, “compromised the integrity” of the Amazon store and “undermined the trust that customers place in Amazon and Canon,” said the complaint (docket 2:23-cv-00679).
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The “unlawful and expressly prohibited sale” of counterfeit Canon goods caused Amazon and Canon “to expend significant resources to investigate and combat” the defendants’ wrongdoing and to bring the lawsuit to prevent them “from inflicting future harm to Amazon, Canon, and their customers,” said the complaint. “A small number of bad actors seek to take advantage of the trust customers place in Amazon by attempting to create Amazon selling accounts to advertise, market, offer, distribute, and sell counterfeit products,” it said.
The bad actors “seek to misuse and infringe the trademarks and other IP of the true manufacturers of those products to deceive Amazon and its customers,” said the complaint. Their unlawful and expressly prohibited conduct “undermines the trust that customers, sellers, and manufacturers place in Amazon, and tarnishes Amazon’s brand and reputation,” it said.
Amazon continues to innovate “to stay ahead of bad actors,” said the complaint. It now requires “live verification,” connecting prospective selling partners with Amazon employees through video chats or in-person appointments to verify their identity and documentation,” it said. Its measures “have made it more difficult for bad actors to hide,” it said. “Amazon’s seller verification, coupled with continued advancements in Amazon’s machine learning-based detection, are deterring bad actors from even attempting to create new Amazon selling accounts,” it said. The number of “bad actor attempts to create new selling accounts” decreased from 6 million in 2020, to 2.5 million in 2021, to 800,000 in 2022, it said.
Once a seller begins selling in Amazon’s stores, Amazon “continues to monitor the selling account’s activities for risks,” said the complaint. If Amazon identifies a bad actor, “it closes that actor’s selling account, withholds funds disbursement, and investigates whether other accounts are involved in unlawful activities,” it said. Amazon also “actively cooperates” with rights owners and law enforcement “to identify and prosecute bad actors suspected of engaging in illegal activity,” it said “Lawsuits, like this one, as well as criminal referrals, are integral components of Amazon’s efforts to combat counterfeits and other inauthentic products.”
Canon reviewed physical samples of Canon-branded products sold by the 29 defendants, “and confirmed that the products are inauthentic,” and bear counterfeit Canon trademarks, said the complaint. “Canon has never authorized the sale of such products,” it said. Some of the defendants submitted “falsified invoices to Amazon purporting to show that their counterfeit products came from a supplier of authentic products,” it said.