Agreed neutral arbitration of Amazon
Neutral arbitration is the most efficient, fast, and cost-effective way to remove a patent-infringing product from Amazon.
As part of Amazon's massive effort to combat forgeries, in 2019 it launched the arbitration institution that makes it possible to quickly investigate patent infringement issues in products marketed in Amazon's trading arena.
The procedure allows patent owners (including small and medium-sized businesses) who sell their products on Amazon to enforce their patents quickly.
The decisive arbitrator on the issue is a neutral arbitrator – chosen by Amazon, but not an Amazon employee – usually a patent attorney or a lawyer with practical experience in patent enforcement trials. Each party to the arbitration must pay several thousand dollars, which will be refunded depending on the outcome of the arbitration.
In order to simplify the arbitration, the hearing is limited to only one claim from a single US patent, and the main allegation is an infringement claim. Claims of patent invalidity are very limited.
The procedure is very simple and includes the following steps:
1. A patent owner initiates the procedure and identifies one or more products that allegedly infringe his patent.
2. One or more Amazon sellers selling the product are asked to agree to participate in the procedure.
a. If the seller does not agree to the arbitration, his product will be removed from Amazon.
b. If the seller agrees to the arbitration - his product will not be removed from Amazon - at least until the procedure is completed.
3. A short arbitration procedure is conducted, including the filing of arguments by the patent owner, the filing of arguments by one or more sellers, the optional response of the patent owner, and the decision of the neutral arbitrator. The neutral arbitrator is required to provide a reason if the patent owner lost the proceeding.
4. If the patent owner wins the proceeding, Amazon will remove the infringing product from its market.
We recommend that you use an American patent attorney to define the claim discussed in the arbitration. The products should violate the claim, but too broad a claim can be disqualified (even if claims of invalidity are very limited in the arbitration).
The neutral arbitrator cannot be directly appealed.
The validity of the neutral arbitrator is limited to Amazon.