Enforcing Patents on Online Marketplaces

Timothy Ardizzone, PhD, Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP

Join us on April 13, 2021 for our next webinar, led by Timothy Ardizzone, PhD, of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP. 

Although online marketplaces like Amazon provide brands unprecedented growth opportunities, they also give a similar advantage to brand competitors and unauthorized sellers by offering an inexpensive and easy forum to market copycat, competitive, counterfeit, and grey market products. A well-developed patent portfolio allows brands to protect against competitors marketing copycat and competitive products that infringe their patent rights. Typically, brands enforce their patent against infringers through cease and desist letters and lawsuits. Due to the high costs associated with patent infringement lawsuits and the relative ease with which sellers can obtain and sell infringing products on marketplaces, litigation-based enforcement is cost prohibitive against most marketplace sellers. Fortunately, online marketplaces offer processes for asserting intellectual property rights directly with the marketplace. For example, Amazon offers three processes for addressing patent infringement on its marketplace, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. When deciding which marketplace IP enforcement process to use, it helps to understand the pros and cons of each submission type. Dr. Ardizzone’s presentation will walk through the different pathways available to patent owners to enforce their rights on Amazon as well as on Walmart.com, eBay, and Alibaba. We anticipate 1.0 hour of CLE credit in Ohio.  

Register here by April 9th at 5:00 PM.

About the Speaker:

Timothy D. Ardizzone, PhD is of counsel in the Cincinnati office of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP. As a member of the firm’s nationally recognized Vorys eControl, Dr. Ardizzone counsels businesses on issues related to e-commerce and online brand protection and helps manufacturers and brands address the problems and harness the opportunities created by e-commerce and online marketplaces.  

Dr. Ardizzone’s practice focuses on designing and implementing efficient enforcement that utilize investigation, technology, and legal tools to identify and remove unauthorized sellers. Dr. Ardizzone develops these custom strategies and programs to assist his clients with their online distribution issues, including pricing, product diversion, counterfeit, patent infringement, trademark infringement, unfair competition, and unauthorized internet sales. In addition to his eControl practice experience, Dr. Ardizzone has over ten years of patent experience in biotech, chemical, and mechanical technologies, as well as experience in trademark preparation and prosecution, litigation, due diligence investigations, and contract preparation and negotiation. Dr. Ardizzone received his J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law., his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, and his B.S. from Tulane University.

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