Before and after the Double 11 promotion, businesses faced an increasing trend in intellectual property complaints, administrative complaints, and litigation disputes. Many merchants are busy with big promotions while trying to deal with various complaints. If they are not handled properly, many troubles will not be mentioned, which can also have a negative impact on the store and affect their activities.

There are two types of complaints that often occur in the daily operations of enterprises. One is administrative complaints from professional complainants, and the other is intellectual property complaints from rights holders. So how should these two types of complaints be prevented and handled?

1. Professional complainants’ risk prevention and complaint response to administrative complaints.

01. Avoid risks.

From the analysis of business consulting cases, the common reasons for complaints from professional complainants are mainly divided into two categories. One is for the quality defects of the product itself, and the other is for the non-compliance with the promotion on the product page. If you want to avoid complaints, it is necessary for merchants to set up a "firewall" before listing products for sale.

As for the product itself, we must first determine whether the product meets the requirements for product access. For example, we need to release mobile phones, digital products, electrical appliances and other products, and the products must have the CCC certification mark. In this step, merchants need to learn and understand the product access requirements in advance and confirm that the product has the corresponding qualifications and meets the requirements before they can consider selling. Merchants need to do "homework" before putting goods on the shelves. The purchasing department must establish an incoming inspection system and require suppliers to provide materials to prove that the goods supplied comply with relevant national laws, regulations and quality standards.

At the same time, it is recommended that merchants sign a purchase and sales contract before cooperating with suppliers. The contract clearly stipulates that the supplier shall bear full responsibility for quality problems of the goods. Once a merchant is subject to consumer claims or administrative penalties due to product quality issues, the supplier shall bear liability for breach of contract and pay compensation to the merchant.

In addition to product quality issues, product promotional pages are also the "hardest hit area" for complaints. Common types of complaints encountered by merchants include: absolute language violations, general food promotion of health products or disease treatment functions, exaggerated or false promotion of product efficacy, promotion of patented products without patent numbers, etc.

In order to avoid complaints, many merchants replace pages with typos or pinyin, hoping to avoid risks. I often call this a psychological comforting behavior, but it essentially has no effect. Whether the posted content is illegal requires the page reviewer to have a basic understanding of advertising laws. Once you are found to have violated the law, you may face heavy fines. At present, the platform has also developed self-inspection tools to help merchants make preliminary judgments. Merchants can use the product risk "compliance tool" in BusinessBao to conduct preliminary screening of product pages and make modifications based on the results.

Of course, manual review is often irreplaceable for page compliance review, and pages need to be reviewed carefully before publishing. Core description: The promotional content is accurate and verifiable. Suppose we want to promote that the sales volume of a certain product is the first in the entire network, then we need to indicate the data source, statistical scope and time. If you want to promote the sunscreen effect of a certain cosmetic, you need to ensure that the product has obtained a special cosmetics approval number. If you are selling generic food, remember not to advertise it as a panacea. Of course, even drugs cannot be advertised.

02. Complaint handling.

Even if the merchant responds seriously, you may still receive a pop-up administrative complaint notification in the store backend. What should I do if I receive a notification?

First of all, we need to determine whether the reason for the complaint is valid, that is, as a merchant, whether we have room for reasonable defense. After receiving a complaint, it does not mean that the merchant must violate the rules. As the respondent, you must actively provide evidence and safeguard your legitimate rights and interests. In an administrative complaint case, the businessman was accused of unfair competition. Finally, through certification, the Yuhang District Market Supervision Administration made a decision not to impose administrative penalties on the parties involved.

Secondly, if the complainant is not a consumer, or even a professional complainant who uses complaints as a profit-making tool, then according to the Tenth Provisional Measures for the Handling of Complaints and Reports on Market Supervision and Management issued on November 30, 2019, According to the provisions of Article 5, the market supervision and management department will not accept the purchase or use of goods or services that are not necessary for daily consumption, or cannot prove that there is a consumer rights dispute with the respondent. In other words, the scope of complaints is limited to "consumers who need to purchase and use goods or receive services for daily consumption, and consumers have disputes with operators."

If none of the above conditions are met and there is indeed an illegal act, rectification must be made as soon as possible to avoid the expansion of illegal consequences. Secondly, merchants can pay attention to some policies and measures issued by local administrative departments. In order to optimize the business environment, some provinces and cities have issued lists of exemptions for minor violations, and some violations that meet the requirements are exempt from punishment.

For example, Article 9 of the "Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China" stipulates that advertisements shall not have the following circumstances:... (3) The use of "national level", "highest level", Terms such as "best" are included in the list of law enforcement supervision projects that apply the notification and commitment system in Zhejiang Province. Providing that advertisers illegally publish advertisements falls under Article 9 (3) of the Advertising Law and the Guiding Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Implementation of Advertising Supervision. Zhejiang Province’s “List of Law Enforcement Supervision Projects Applying the Informed Commitment System” stipulates that 67 minor violations should be exempted from punishment for the first mistake. Shanghai, Tianjin, Hubei, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu and other places have also issued lists of minor violations in market supervision through different forms. For illegal acts that fall within the scope of the exemption list, punishment can be exempted for the first time through timely rectification and active advocacy of evidence.

So, if there is an illegal act, we can also actively advocate the production of evidence, reduce the degree of punishment, reduce the fine, and reduce the amount.

2. Intellectual property risk prevention and complaint response.

Intellectual property protection is receiving more and more attention. There are corresponding rules at the legal level and platform rule level to limit intellectual property infringement. Different types of infringement correspond to different penalty rules and consequences. Once the complaint fails, the link will be deleted, the store will be punished for violations, the weight of the store will be affected, and even the store will be closed. For every merchant, intellectual property rules are very important for store operations.

01. Risk avoidance.

From the perspective of the platform’s intellectual property rules, the most serious violation is type C sales violation: selling counterfeit goods refers to selling counterfeit registered trademark goods or selling pirated goods. All other infringements of intellectual property rights are general infringements of improper use of the rights of others.

For merchants, illegal sales of counterfeit goods are the lifeline of the store. Once the illegal sales of counterfeit goods cause a major impact, you need to pay attention to the regularity of the source of goods in daily operations, confirm that the goods are genuine, and retain complete purchase vouchers to deal with possible complaints.

Improper use and infringement of other people’s rights in the platform rules are mainly divided into trademark infringement, copyright infringement and patent infringement. For general trademark infringement, merchants need to be reminded to pay attention to the standardized use of the trademarks of the goods being sold in the process of selling goods, especially to avoid traffic from other brands.

The most common type of copyright infringement by merchants is image theft, which refers to the act of using the copyright owner's images in information pages displayed on the platform without the permission and authorization of the image copyright owner. What needs special attention here is that sellers often confuse brand sales authorization with image use authorization. Even if they obtain brand sales authorization, it does not mean that they can use the image that appears on the brand's official website and flagship store page. It is recommended that sellers take photos themselves and keep the original images, or confirm that they have obtained authorization from the copyright owner before using the images.

02. Complaint handling.

Once you face an intellectual property complaint, you must first analyze whether there is infringement. If there is any infringement, you can proactively contact the rights holder to communicate and negotiate. If the right holder is willing to withdraw the complaint, the liquidated damages will be cancelled. It should be noted that if both parties reach a settlement, it is best to confirm the settlement content through an agreement to avoid subsequent disputes.

If it is found through analysis that there are no violations, we must follow the complaint guidelines given by the platform and actively prepare materials for handling complaints. The platform gives merchants a complaint period of three working days for intellectual property complaints, starting from the date when the merchant’s backend receives the complaint notice. The preparation of complaint materials requires attention to ensure the authenticity and completeness of the complaint. Therefore, in daily business activities, we must pay attention to the retention of credentials and the standardization of page publishing, so that even if there are complaints, there will be solutions.

With the implementation of the E-commerce Law on January 1, 2019, in the field of e-commerce, legal issues and compliance issues have become "Internet celebrity issues", and legal compliance management is the general trend for practitioners. As platform rules are further improved, understanding and complying with the rules will bring "dividends" to merchants. I hope all merchants have a safe Double Eleven.