Protection of Trademark Rights on E-commerce Platforms: An Updated Outlook

Abstract

The rise of e-commerce platforms has revolutionized the way businesses operate and engage with consumers. However, this digital landscape has brought about new challenges, particularly in the protection of trademark rights. With the increasing prevalence of counterfeit products and unauthorized sellers, it is crucial to address the issue and explore effective strategies to safeguard intellectual property in the online marketplace. This article aims to provide an updated outlook on the violation of trademark rights on e-commerce platforms. It delves into the complexities surrounding the identification, prevention, and enforcement of trademark infringement in the rapidly evolving digital ecosystem. By examining recent cases and developments in legal frameworks, this article seeks to shed light on the strategies employed by both brand owners and platforms to combat these infringements. This study examined and discussed the main types of trademark infringements in the online environment, such as selling counterfeit goods or gray imports, cybersquatting, domain infringements, illegal use of the trademark on the Internet, violations of the trademark rights on the website and etc. The article discusses whether the search engine will be held liable for placing contextual advertising using a keyword in the form of someone else's trademark. The article also analyzes issues of trademark infringement in the online environment in China by analyzing a couple of notable case studies, while exploring the issue of website blocking. As a result of the study, the authors proposed certain measures to combat the distribution of counterfeit products in the online environment to prevent further trademark infringement.

Received: 26 November 2023 | Revised: 31 January 2024 | Accepted: 26 February 2024

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that she has no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.