Amazon and GoPro have filed a joint lawsuit towards a gaggle of Chinese nationals and companies they allege bought counterfeit GroPro merchandise on Amazon. In newly unsealed courtroom paperwork, the 2 corporations say the fraudsters made knockoffs of a few of GoPro’s hottest equipment that blatantly used its branding to attempt to trick potential consumers.
Among the merchandise the counterfeiters noticed to go off as genuine embody GoPro’s signature “3-Way” and “The Handler” grips. The knockoffs have been typically arduous to identify, with refined variations between them and their actual GoPro counterparts. For occasion, some had foam handles that have been a barely totally different colour from the one you may discover on tripods from the corporate.
“When counterfeiters attempt to sell in our store, they not only violate the intellectual property rights of companies like GoPro, they also mislead consumers and harm Amazon’s reputation as a place to buy authentic goods,” stated Kebharu Smith, director of Amazon’s just lately shaped Counterfeit Crimes Unit.
Amazon and GoPro aren’t the primary corporations to take authorized motion towards fraudsters utilizing the platform to promote counterfeit items. Back in 2016, Apple alleged that about 90 p.c of the Lightning cables and chargers marked “Fulfilled by Amazon” have been pretend.
However, Amazon contends the issue is not widespread. In 2020, the corporate says lower than 0.01 p.c of all merchandise bought on its market have been the topic of a counterfeit criticism from prospects. As The Verge points out, what we do not know is what number of gadgets the corporate bought final 12 months.
At the size Amazon does enterprise, 0.01 p.c may symbolize tens of 1000’s of complaints. It’s additionally not clear how many individuals purchased a counterfeit product, and both did not suppose to contact the corporate about their buy or have been none the wiser about what they’d of their possession. Either method, the difficulty of pretend GoPro merchandise was urgent sufficient for Amazon to crew up with the corporate to take it on.
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