Another Suspected Intellectual Property Violation - Apple

Account Health Intellectual Property
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Yesterday afternoon I received an “Action required: Your listings are at risk of deactivation” email fr Amazon

Checked my Account Health page, and there was 1 listing under “Suspected Intellectual Property Violation”, the reason was “Trademark misuse(Apple)”.

The listing is one of my folded book art, a 3D design of an apple shape with the word “Teacher” within the shape. I had “Teacher in Apple” as part of the title, and also the word apple was used in bullet points.

The listing has nothing to do with “Apple” brand/tradmark/devices, it was just using the word apple in the most generic term to describ my artwork, which I guess is no longer allowed without having to jump through a lot of hoops.

According to the email (I added the bold):

"To address your listing violation, click ‘Edit’ next to each affected ASIN in the Suspected Intellectual Property Violations section.

Your listing violation will be removed automatically within 8 hours if you submit to Amazon for review after editing it in one of the following ways:

1. Remove the trademarked term from the product detail page entirely,"

I choose to do option 1, instead of jumping through hoops. I clicked “Edit” button, got to the listing, took out the word “Apple” from the title, just left it with “Teacher”. Also edited the bullet points to take out the word apple there too, then saved the change.

There is no way for me to “submit to Amazon for review after editing”, so I hope the act of Edit and save the change is considered as submition.

The email said after remove the trademark term, the violation will be removed within 8 hrs. Well. it’s around 14 hrs now, the proudct detail page shows updated info without the word “Apple” anywhere, but the “Violation” is still showing on my Account Health page.

There is also this notice on the violation page:

  • If your listing has ‘Edit’ as a next step, please edit it to ensure you are not misusing any trademarks. Once your listing is corrected, it will automatically be reinstated. Please allow 24 hours for reinstatement.

My listing was active so far, it was not deactivate or removed, so there wasn’t an issue of reinstatement. Does Amazon mean the “Violation” will be removed within 24 hrs?

A while ago there was a similar thing happened (I don’t remember for what word now), and very soon after removed/changed the term, the “Violation” went away, so this time the delay is kind of worrying for me.

I’ll wait for at least 24 hrs from the time I removed the term to see what happens.

The question I have is what should I do if the “Violation” doesn’t automatically moved after 24 hrs?

If anybody had experienced the similar situation, any advise/tip will be much appreciated.

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Oh boy, so sorry you are dealing with this. I have a listing I describe as ‘apple red’ so maybe I should just change that now.

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That might be a good idea.

I was searching in NSFE, and found at least couple sellers who used the word Apple in their listings had similar thing happened to them. One was for a painting of a woman with an apple. Forgot what the other was for. They were trying to fight the violation charge, but didn’t seem to be successful, at least they didn’t post about the violation was removed without having to remove the term.

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OK. Just happen a couple minutes ago, but my “violation” is gone from my Account Health" page now. It took about 16 hrs after I removed the word Apple.

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Stupid Amabots - can’t love them, can’t put `em out of OUR misery.

You took the path of least resistance, and I’m pleased that it worked out for you - that’s not always the case when a poorly-parameterized Amabot comes into play, dadgummit.

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@Dreamscape-Studio I’m very happy that your violation is gone, but this is as stupid of an Amabot as @meredithbead 's “mother of pearl” saga.

You HAVE to let them know that this is utterly ridiculous!

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This is just too stupid. I don’t know if misspellings “appel” or combined words “applefruit” would fly under the radar.

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Nail, meet hammer.

Judging from the vast abundance of evidence over the years that various Bad (and/or merely Ignorant) Actors have successfully evaded this or that poorly-parameterized policing Amabot via just such machinations, perhaps so.

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Could it be simply that she spelled “Apple” with a capital “A” instead of lower case? Just a thought.

-Ana

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Maybe. But for the title each main words should be spelled with a capital letter, right?

The word apple in the bullet points were spelled with lower case, I probably didn’t necessary have to remove them, but I didn’t want to take the chance of muddy the water, and not know what was the reason, if I left them and then the violation was not removed.

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Gosh, this is the first time we get to use the new “ITS ILLEGAL” flag, but I don’t see that as a topic category choice, so “Trademark Misuse” and “AMABOT” tags will have to do… :frowning:

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That’s a fair point, if on no other score than that the long-demonstrable evidence in situations like our friend Dreamscape’s strongly suggests that such policing Amabots are fairly blinkered in their approach.

Yes, that’s still the standard in published policy, @Dreamscape-Studio, as is exemplified in the SHC (“Seller Help Content” in ‘Dogtamerese’) page “Product Title Conventions” @ https: //sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/202121820 - among other help pages, certain Style Guides, and various Browse Tree Guides.

That being said, Amazon’s automated mechanisms have for many years displayed a good deal of disdain for published policy, depending upon the whims of this or that well-siloed Amazon Team which dips its toe into the Editorial Team’s bailiwick - unbidden or not.

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@Dreamscape-Studio - In addition to misspelled words, you can try to insert an asterisk in the word like ap*ple. It is still readable to humans, but maybe not the amabot.

Marilyn

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No argument on what should be done, but Amazon bots may need special treatment. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

-Ana

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Consider yourself lucky that YOUR apple did not closely resemble a McIntosh Apple or you might already be on the way to a ‘reeducation camp’ in some offshore location.

t_500x300

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Just saw this post on NSFE’s HM forum:
" I also have the word “Apple Green” to describe a color of ribbon and that was flagged for infringing on the Apple Computer trademark. Trying to get any help from Amazon has been impossible."

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