Trading in the EU? Mind your IP - Stay Competitive! - with Zornitsa Dimitrova from Zipit Legal

This session explores the crucial link between intellectual property (IP) and e-commerce success. The speaker discusses how proper IP protection can enhance brand recognition, foster consumer trust, and ultimately boost sales. They highlight the dangers of neglecting IP, particularly in relation to counterfeit products and misleading online practices. The talk emphasizes the importance of IP registration and monitoring, especially in light of the European Union's digital service regulations that support e-commerce traders. Additionally, the speaker addresses the challenges posed by varying IP policies on different platforms and the need for proactive strategies in selecting and protecting IP assets. They conclude by noting the dual role of AI in IP enforcement, acknowledging both its benefits and potential threats.

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining me in this session. I hope you're having a blast so far on the summit. I certainly am. Today I would like to dedicate this 20 minutes on the connection between IP and e-commerce and why intellectual property is very crucial for your e-commerce success and how we can actually use this asset to boost your sales and your brand recognition and to

increase your consumer trust. I've seen it all. I've seen all kind of successful e-commerce businesses that actually underestimate IP just because sales are going up. There are a lot of consumers, the product is hot. So why bother? Why actually try to put some effort, some administrative work and why spend uh money on on IP protection? Well, actually in the short run that might be the successful strategy,

but in the long run uh intellectual property has uh huge positives. uh it will definitely enhance your market positioning and will increase your competitive advantage. Very good solid uh brand and protected brand uh fosters consumer's trust and once you have your brand reputation in place and when you're watching over your IP protection then all kind of new products that you're placing on the market that you're trying

to sell online are automatically trusted by consumers. So you will not need to spend that many that much money on on marketing campaigns. The brand speaks for itself. In addition, uh such kind of strong brand reputation and enforcing your IP rights drives your business growth through stronger brand recognition just brand reputation actually drives also partnerships, distribu distribution agreements. it creates um opportunities to unlock new territories and

in such way to to increase your markets online. Uh this is the positive side of IP protection. However, uh when it comes to abusive misleading practices uh online, by registration of your IP assets, you can actually have the rights to to prevent misuse, unauthorized uh exploitation, and to prevent and to save yourself from any kind of third party claims and unfair competition, including misleading advertisements. Of course,

last but not least, the counterfeit industry. I think everybody is aware of the problem uh with this spreading online. So in order to combat any kind of counterfeit product that infringes upon your right, the first uh step to do is to register your brand, your design or any kind of IP asset that actually subsist within your product. while speaking about protection speaking about um enforcing your IP

rights we need to put them into context and that's why I want to stress upon the key challenges in the e-commerce industry today which actually pose the biggest threat threat uh on all kind of as uh as mentioned before counterfeit industry is maybe the major threat uh when it comes to e-commerce uh because it spreads all around us. It tarnishes your brand reputation and once a customer

is misled and buys a counterfeit product, then you need to spend maybe triple more in marketing to get them back as a customer and to get their trust back. Social media accounts, don't underestimate those. It might be not directly connected with uh doing an e-commerce business with with selling you a product but customers are very likely to perform cross checks once they like a product on an

e-commerce platform. They go to social media they discuss there they listen to influencers, bloggers, vloggers. So this creates a huge um opportunity for abuses and for brand tarnishment and for um unfair business practices. So once you have your product in place, your IP registration, make sure that you're screening to all kind of social media platforms, you're looking at the profiles, you're identifying infringing profiles, profiles that uh

uses your brand and reputation and make sure that you report them to the to the platform. But here is the key. In order to uh to report them and this profile to be taken down, you need to present the platform with your IP registration document. Otherwise, they wouldn't do anything about that. Next problem is the fact that nowadays it's very difficult to maintain a very good track

track record of all the marketplaces and what are their IP policies. Now, there are IP policies. They're not uniform and you need to screen through all of those in order to make sure that you are aware of all the specificities and um regulations that they impose in order for your claim against an infringing product to be successful. This is very challenging. Fortunately uh the EU IPO this

is the European Union intellectual property office provides us with a tool where you can search for direct links of all the major e-commerce platforms and there you can do a very very simple screening what actually you need to observe when it comes to filing a claim on a specific Next but maybe one of the most important thing is the fact that by definition e-commerce industry is borderless.

We are not concerned about territories. That's the beauty of it. You can sell through one website worldwide. This is amazing. However, intellectual property by definition is strictly territorial. So in order to be able to enforce everywhere where you like, you need to have your registrations in place for every single territory. selling in the EU is much more effortless just because for the purposes of IP uh protection

EU is considered to be one territory the legislation is absolutely uniform and that's how you can maintain and protect your brand and your design the design of the product with only one and not with 27 the way it used to be. Another very big benefit of selling within the EU territory is the fact that the legislation is very uh e-commerce favorable and uh European Union is doing

everything to make you feel very comfortable when when selling and uh looking for infringing products on the market and this is achieved mostly uh through the digital service act which mandates the platforms to reduce intellectual property infringement. So what EU did it actually shifted the responsibility to the platforms despite the fact that they are not the traders per se and they made them create policies that actually

protect and to watch for intellectual property infringements and to create opportunities for you for the IP right holders to to enforce easily effortlessly and without any hurdles despite the the territory problem. Okay. So what are the essential tools of the European intellectual property office? I mentioned the fact that it is a great pool of information. You can search for all kind of information uh regarding uh intellectual

property and e-commerce including all the links of IP protection uh strategies. However, the two major tools are the reg uh EU trademark registration portal and community designs registration portal. Through these portals actually online with a couple of clicks, you can actually maintain and obtain your registrations. Look for third party trademarks that you might potentially infringe before registration. Look for relevant community designs. see where you are actually

placed u within the market when it comes to IP protection. Everything is very easy to use. They implemented a lot of AIS and they want a lot of rewards. So this website is worth going through. It gives you basically the whole information that you need if you're planning to sell on your territory new products that are still not IP protected. I mentioned the DSA. The DSA I

just want to go in a little bit more detail because it imposes specific obligations which are very favor favorable for uh e-commerce traders. And the first obligation is the so-called notice and action obligation. This in a nutshell this means that once you spot an infringing good and you actually serves a notice to the platform they're obliged to take action. They need to do investigation. They need to

identify the infringing product and in case you have the evidence that you are the right IP holder then they need to take down the infringing good from their platform. And here is the key without IP registration of your brand of your design they would never actually take down the infringing good because you have not protected your IP. Second thing which actually uh solves a lot of problems

before the digital service act is to ensure traceability of traders. Once you spot the infringing goods, a lot of e-commerce traders were willing to try to impose any sanctions on them and to claim damages from them. But the problem was that while selling online, it's very easy to be hidden. And once you're hidden, there is no counter party that you need to file the claim against. So

what the DCA did, it made sure that all the e-commerce marketplaces make sure that they got to the bottom of the actual trader and once there is an I infringement spotted and the product is taken down from the market then you can easily get the uh actual data about the trader and then you can actually file a claim for damages. They also uh made the platforms to

create very easy to understand terms uh terms and conditions. You no long no longer need to actually get your legal advisor with you to understand what you're entitled to, what is the procedure and h how to how to enforce your IP rights, they are obliged to create it very user friendly uh and I've checked it is indeed also in case they spot any kind of misleading advertisement

even without notice they they're going to take it down. But all of these are secondary liabilities because their liability uh is actually imposed only after receipt of infringement notice and in order for you to file the so-called infringement notice you need to support it with evidence of the fact that you have properly registered your IP right. So without IP right registration you wouldn't be able to make

use of all these uh tools that the DCA brings along to the marketplaces so that it can make your life easier. Now here's just a snapshot of the e-commerce information platform from the EU IPO. I I've taken down exactly the snapshot where there are the concrete links of all the e-commerce marketplaces that were willing to actually provide it uh within the pool the terms and conditions with

one easy click you're automatically forwarded to uh their IP policy and I find it especially uh useful because you have it all there all the marketplaces all the the IP policies and protection tools and uh it it is very easy to to orient yourself around Speaking about different terms and conditions and different IP protection policies, I think that it might be very useful to put you into

some real case studies and to bring everything set until now into context. I just took some examples from Etsy, eBay, and Amazon just because they're very uh popular and because their IP uh protection programs vary. So you can see different examples of how how the marketplaces are actually handling the matter and trying to abide by the obligations imposed by the DSA act. Um they're in order of

importance diligence. However, I'm going to start with Etsy. ET has a reporting portal. It's very easy to use, but it's very simple. Basically, what they do have there is that you're downloading a form, an application form for IP infringement. You're putting down which good is infringing your IP right. You're putting down your IP registration and you're sending it o over email. So, it's very simple. It complies

totally with the DSA, but it's nothing much. Then second best is the eBay verified right owner port uh program. They went a step further. They actually created a digital portal where you are registering your IP right beforehand. Even if you're not selling there doesn't matter. And once you have your profile, your IP right owner profile, then you're actually claiming the infringement within the portal and everything else

is automatically when it comes to process. And of course the big player in IP protection in the e-commerce is Amazon. They have created their own AI powered and backed brand registry and they are going way further than the other marketplaces. is trying to force you to actually protect your IP because once you protect your uh the IP and put it into the brand registry you're getting variety

of benefits. um you can work on building the brand reputation and consumer trust and all of this is uh performed through their AI and the more data and um consumer behavior and IP infringements you are putting within the the portal the more the portal actually does everything automatically for you. It even has this feature of automatic counterfeit detection and removal. However, in order to get to this

stage, you actually need to fill in a lot of data beforehand. So, Amazon are is trying to do the best in order to force you to get your IP registrations and protection in place. Okay. So before getting to the registration, it is very crucial to to know that you cannot simply go to the portal and just file one application for registration of your brand or design. It

might seem simple, but it's not because IP protection is very useful once you're doing proactively and you're looking for the future and not retroactively. And for sure it's not going to make a lot of use for you if you're not actually thinking 5 years ahead. So before going and registering whatever IP you might think you have, it's good to create a very lean strategy where you look

at your product, you spot all the IP that it has. It might be trademarks, might be designs, there might be some patentable subject matter, there might be some geographical indications. So you need to be very aware what is your IP that you need to protect why to protect it. You need to define the sources of income that you are planning to have 5 years ahead. This means

that you need to think in the future of unlocking new territories, execution of uh possible licenses, distribution agreements and even after all that you know you you need to think in advance of how you're going to enforce and maintain your your uh registration on the relevant territory. So it's not just a matter of a simple application filing. A lot of things have to be considered And because

of course we're talking about e-commerce, we're talking about uh products, most of them fastmoving consumer goods, I decided just to give you an example of how you need to do the step-by-step protection for the trademark specifically because it's another story for community design. It's another story for patents. But when it comes to trademark again you need to identify the territories and the e-commerce marketplaces. It's better in

advance to skim the relevant uh terms and condition of the marketplace and to see whether they have some specificities that you need to abide to. Second step which is very often neglected but it's very crucial. You need to conduct trademark searches before applying for registration. This is very crucial because if you actually file for registration of a trademark that infringes upon a previously registered trademark then you

might be in trouble and somebody can file a claim against you and take down your goods. So this is something that we don't want to do. And after the registration of the trademark, of course, uh you need to make sure that this is not the end. It's only the beginning. And we need to start monitoring and maintaining the registration so that all this effort was actually worth

it. For the end, I just wanted to make sure that I'm draw drawing your attention on the AI and its impact over the IP for the e-commerce. Too early to say whether it's going to be hugely beneficial or it's going to tarnishes the the whole policy of the IP in the e-commerce mark u environment. However, just make sure that it have two sides of the story. It

can be your friend or your foe just because there are a lot of benefits if you implement the right AI and you use the right AI because these are tools for fast, accurate and very reliable detection of IP infringement. However, it might actually poses huge threats over your business because the unfair competitors may use especially generative AI so that they can create infringing content which is very

difficult to track and to spot. So basically if I've already bored you to that I'm so sorry. In a nutshell, if anything uh important was said for the past 20 minutes is that IP protection might be an invaluable asset for increasing your sales and for boosting the consumer trust. be proactive. Take your time to just do the research and see what can be very beneficial for your

business and make the most of the EU regulations just because they're trying to make your life easier and better. In case you have any questions, I'm available and I'm around. Thank you very