Amazon Does NOT Care About USA Patents, Trademarks, or Copyright Registrations
Chinese counterfeit versions of my company's active US patent #10,139,750 are routinely sold on Amazon, Ebay, AliExpress, and Walmart webstores. Amazon is the worst of these four companies. The Chinese counterfeit sellers use our pending trademark(s) #98399009 and/or #98344403, as well as text/images copied straight from our web site and product instructions (despite our US Copyright Office registration #TXu2-417-581 dated January 5, 2024). Amazon refuses to do anything about it by telling us to deal with the patent infringement on our own with the Chinese sellers, which is nearly impossible. After we make a test buy of the counterfeit parts, Amazon removes our 1-star negative reviews and tries to claim the counterfeit product we received is authentic (even when it comically has my company name and patent number listed on it).
We created this website to shame Amazon into properly protecting American Intellectual Property (IP) and to help educate the public on the proliferation of Chinese counterfeit products. Even worse, the counterfeits use thinner copper in their part, which has caused safety issues resulting in phone calls to us. Our company "Vertical Visions LLC" is a small family business located in Eldersburg, Maryland since 2001 and I feed my family through the products I invented.
Amazon doesn't care about USA small businesses. Amazon doesn't care about our USA patent, trademark, or copyright registration. They only care about the almighty dollar. Avoid Amazon.
Amazon - Do you have the courage to contact us and listen to our concerns about how you're ignoring USA small business IP?Patent Infringement
We have a valid and current US patent #10,139,750 which protects our parts. When we report patent infringement through Amazon's Infringement Form, we are told to address the problem ourselves by contacting the Chinese sellers. When we request to join the Amazon Patent Evaluation Express Program (APEX), which is a method Amazon offers to determine if the accused product is infringing on our patent through a independent evaluator, we are told by Amazon they "reviewed our patent and have concluded that US patent #10,139,750 is not a suitable candidate for this streamlined evaluation process". Our US patent #10,139,750 encompasses several products we sell, including the part that is counterfeited the most - our TIPM Plug-In Relay System (Lite) which shares at least 7 of 20 patent claims. Our lawyers have reviewed our patent and the products that we sell, confirming our claim of patent infringement.
Trademark Infringement
We have two pending US trademarks #98399009 and #98344403. When we report trademark infringement through the same Infringement Form, we are told they don't care about pending trademarks. As you can see, the counterfeiters use one or both of our pending trademarks in their product title in order to confuse potential buyers. Our business receives phone calls and emails on a regular basis from people who have purchased the counterfeits, thinking it is OUR genuine product. Some Chinese counterfeits actually have our company name and patent number written on the product.
Copyright Infringement
The registered copyright for the text/images on our website as well as our product instructions is US Copyright Office Certificate of Registration #TXu2-417-581. We submitted this content to the Library of Congress and paid a fee to officially register this IP in order to protect ourselves. Every Chinese counterfeit so far has stolen our images and/or text straight from our website when promoting their own fake versions. When we report copyright infringement through the same Infringement Form, we immediately receive an email apparently crafted by AI that states "the description of your copyrighted work does not match the content you reported as infringing". This is wrong. Additionally, since Amazon does not have a method for us to upload the copyrighted works for comparison, they ridiculously rely on "copyright descriptions" as the evidence of their argument. This is illogical.
Amazon Won't Print Our Negative Reviews of Counterfeits
One counterfeit part actually contained our company name and patent number in an effort to deceive customers, therefore we found it essential to post a review after making a test buy of the part. Amazon actually DENIED our review by stating the following: "We investigated your concerns about product authenticity, and the information we have indicates that the product you received was authentic. As a result, we removed the review you submitted. This ensures that customer reviews remain as accurate as possible for the benefit of future customers."
Counterfeit Examples
Compare my company's patented and trademarked part, the TIPM Plug-In Relay System (Lite), with the five Amazon Counterfeits shown below sold by various Chinese scumbags. The worst offender is chenyangyang/XYgdhqpt with email address wfxycyy@163.com, who routinely apologizes to us and claims he has destroyed all inventory before selling more counterfeits. Other scumbags include Chen Geng Geng/GuangYun Gongsi with email dbncds@163.com and XIAN TING XU/ZrAutomch with email address zhirui3191818@163.com. Images to older counterfeit versions are located below, but keep in mind there are many more versions where the link is no longer available: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C7MTC89P and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSYR6VBR
This Is A Lie
When we submit patent, trademark, or copyright infringement claims on the Amazon website, they comically show the following banner:
Contact Us
For more information, please visit my company's Counterfeit Product page showing more Amazon, Ebay, AliExpress, and Walmart counterfeit parts. Or send us an email at info@amazonfakes.com.