Anti-infringement warning: Amazon’s [selfie ring light] has applied for a patent, and the seller should pay close attention to self-examination!

The epidemic has spawned many explosions, and the self-timer ring light is one of them. Many products on Amazon have left thousands of reviews and sold very well.

In addition, the heat related to self-timer lamps has remained high. According to Google Trends, the heat value of the selfie lamp has never dropped by 75 in the past 30 days.

There is a market and heat, and the self-timer ring light is still a “potential stock”. The peak season is approaching, can the self-timer ring lamp be sold? Is there a risk of infringement? What infringement traps need to be avoided? Come and have a look with us!

Product Patent Analysis-Invention Patent

After searching, it is found that there are two authorized American invention patents for self-timer ring lights:

① Patent name: Audio Visual-Capturing System for a Lighted Mirror, which was authorized in September 2019.

The system can illuminate the user’s face with various colors or intensities, and also provide a means to shoot images or videos. The one-way mirror is used to reflect the user’s face on one side and transmit light on the other side, so that devices such as smart phones can take photos or videos for users through the one-way mirror.

In this invention patent, there are 17 claims in the patent text of authorization announcement, including 1 independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2-17 directly or indirectly subordinate to independent claim 1.

② Patent name: Systems and methods for a mirror mounted light with mobile device mounting, which was granted in March 2021.

In this invention patent, there are 20 claims in the patent text of authorization announcement, including 3 independent claims (claims 1, 5 and 20) and dependent claims 2-4 directly or indirectly subordinate to independent claim 1, and dependent claims 6-19 directly or indirectly subordinate to independent claim 5.

Select claim 5 for analysis. 　　

The above are the two invention patents retrieved, and each patent has many claims, so sellers who sell related products should pay attention to avoiding them. If you are not sure whether your product is infringing, you can contact us for help ~

Product Patent Analysis-Appearance Patent

In addition to the above invention patents, we also retrieved many related American appearance patents:

Amazon’s criteria for judging the infringement of appearance patents are generally similar, that is, whether the general public will mistake the products involved for patented products through comparison, and if it is easy to mistake them, the risk of infringement is high.

This criterion makes the infringement of appearance patent easy to be detected. If the products you sell are too similar to other people’s products, you need to pay close attention to self-inspection.

How to avoid patent infringement?

(1) self-inspection products, patent search.

When selecting products, sellers should investigate and understand the products they choose, and conduct patent risk early warning analysis before putting them on the shelves to avoid infringement risks.

② Understand the supply information of products.

It is best for sellers to consult with factories or suppliers to find out whether the products are independently developed, copied from other people’s products, or improved and upgraded on the basis of other people’s products, and more importantly, which sellers the products are supplied to.

③ Pay attention to the details of supply.

Suppliers may supply different sellers at the same time, which makes it very common to sell different brands of the same product on the platform. For this kind of supplier, the seller should communicate clearly the details of the supply at the beginning and confirm whether the supplier is the real patentee.

Write it at the end

Patents are exclusive and exclusive. You can’t manufacture, produce or sell other people’s patented products without authorization, otherwise you will face the disastrous consequences of taking the listing off the shelf or blocking the account.

In addition to avoiding the risk of infringement, sellers should also have a sense of prevention. Patent application can obtain patent monopoly, seize the market and protect technology. If you have good ideas, good technology or methods, you must apply for a patent in time and get legal protection.