How Amazon® Displays its Products

Amazon sellers are often confronted with notices of infringement from other sellers in the Amazon marketplace. For that reason, it is important to understand how Amazon shows products for sale on its website.

Each and every product sold on Amazon has a single "product detail page". The product will also have what is called an Amazon Standard Identification Number, known as its "ASIN". When someone looks thru Amazon for a certain product, they are directed to that product's detail page.

As understood by Amazon sellers, this product detail page is the homepage for that product and describes its specifications. Importantly, this homepage will also show the sellers that offer the product. Remember that ASIN?

Now, to sell a product that is already sold elsewhere on Amazon, a seller must match its offering to an existing ASIN and its accompanying product detail page. Amazon DOES NOT ALLOW sellers to create a new ASIN for a product that is already being sold on Amazon. This raises the question – “who controls the information placed on a details page?”

Amazon determines what information is included on a product detail page based on seller input. But, there is no guarantee that the information provided by a seller will appear on that page. Particularly if the product is not new to Amazon.

When multiple sellers are offering the same product, the detail page defaults to one seller's offering. Amazon refers to this default offering as the "Buy Box." The product's detail page will say that the product is "sold by" whichever seller is in the Buy Box at that time. What about other sellers?

Other sellers’ offerings are available under the page's links to "New & Used from" or "Other Sellers on Amazon." Per Amazon’s policy, only professional sellers who meet certain performance-based requirements are eligible for placement in the Buy Box. If multiple sellers are eligible, it is awarded to the best performer.

It is unclear whether Amazon checks the accuracy of info on a product's detail page. It seems that Amazon chooses the information to include via an automated process.

Amazon does not notify the sellers of a given product when it changes information on the product detail page. Lawsuits over the ill effects of this system are difficult for a seller to win. So, it is far more effective to comply with Amazon’s policies, including its IP Policy (more on this in another posting). See for example New Age Imps., Inc. v. VD Imps., Inc., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165653 (C.D. Cal. July 18, 2019).

Making things more beautiful - is that patentable?

Inventors make things to solve problems. Making water cleaner, cars faster, appliances smarter. Such problems solved, and the inventions that solve them, can be granted a patent. But, sometimes the problem does not seem so, well, problematic.

For instance, can an invention be patented if it merely causes something to be more beautiful?

One lock company seems to think so. In fact, this week an Indiana inventor was granted United States Patent No. 10,794,082 for a door handle using a chambered light source for illuminating a door with a pattern - it makes the door itself more beautiful too.

The inventor felt that door handles include lights merely to give information related to the status of the door, e.g. “opened” or “closed”. These old doorknobs fail at enhancing “the overall aesthetic of the door or the handle.”

So, this Indiana inventor made a doorknob that “includes a shell having a front side and a rear side” and “a light source” which is placed inside an ”internal chamber.” This way a “pattern is positioned on the rear side of the shell” via a semi-clear piece projecting a pretty little pattern onto the door.

Now that is beautiful!

What Is A Copyright?

Clients are often confused about the various forms of intellectual property, that is, patents, trademark, or copyrights. So, what is a copyright?

Simply put, a copyright is a type of personal property. It is created by statute and gives a person a right to their original creative work, a book, a song, something with original authorship. The thing to be copyrighted must be fixed in some tangible form that allows for it to be expressed to others. Paper, magnetic tape, canvas, or rock to name a few examples.

United States copyright laws are created by our federal government through the Copyright Act of 1976 (“Copyright Act”). The federal agency responsible for carrying out the copyright laws is the United States Copyright Office, a part of the library of congress.

A few examples of things that a creative person might want to get a copyright for are:

• books

• plays

• sculptures

• works of art

• music

• movies 

• software

• podcast recordings

A person that creates something original will be protected from unauthorized copying by others once a copyright is registered. So, the creative person would, with a copyright, have an exclusive property right in the creative work. They would have the right to do and to authorize others to remake, distribute, perform, display or copy the work.

Importantly, it is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided to a creative person that is attained via the properly registered copyright. This right extends for a period of years that are determined by the Copyright Act. Too, like any form of personal property, a creative person’s copyright may be transferred – sold or left to someone in a will for instance.