American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) has filed a lawsuit towards e-commerce large Amazon, accusing the corporate of infringing on its Aerie and Offline by Aerie logos. The lawsuit, filed this week in Manhattan federal courtroom, alleges that Amazon intentionally misled customers by utilizing Aerie branding in sponsored advertisements and search outcomes to direct prospects to counterfeit merchandise.
The clothes retailer claims Amazon used “flagrant, unauthorised use” of its trademark to deceive customers into believing real Aerie merchandise have been obtainable on the platform. In response to the grievance, clicking on these deceptive hyperlinks leads customers to pages displaying solely “knock-offs and ‘dupes'” of Aerie merchandise.
American Eagle states it had beforehand declined Amazon’s request to promote Aerie merchandise on its website, preferring to keep up management over the model’s id and buyer expertise. The corporate asserts it notified Amazon of the alleged infringement over a month in the past however claims the e-commerce platform responded by relabeling merchandise with misspellings like “Aeries” and “Aries.”
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to halt additional trademark infringement, in addition to monetary damages. American Eagle argues that Amazon’s actions have brought on confusion amongst customers and probably broken the Aerie model’s popularity by associating it with inferior high quality merchandise.
This lawsuit just isn’t the primary of its form towards Amazon. The e-commerce large has confronted comparable complaints for years relating to counterfeit merchandise on its platform. In 2016, German shoemaker Birkenstock introduced it could pull its merchandise from Amazon as a result of a surge in counterfeits. That very same 12 months, German automaker Daimler AG sued Amazon after discovering knock-off variations of Mercedes-Benz wheels offered by a third-party vendor.
These incidents led to the corporate including a warning about the specter of third-party sellers peddling counterfeits to the “threat elements” part of its annual monetary submitting in 2019. Since then, Amazon has elevated its efforts to fight counterfeits, together with launching groups to pursue legal motion towards counterfeiters and growing instruments to assist manufacturers defend their logos.
