Canon sues multiple Amazon Marketplace users for selling counterfeit products

Canon has filed a lawsuit in conjunction with Amazon.com against sellers of counterfeit toner cartridges being sold on the Amazon US store. Canon Inc. and Canon USA, Inc. announced on Wednesday October 3 that they had filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington against 18 sellers accused of selling counterfeit products, infringing Canon's trademark rights. This isn't the first time Canon and Amazon have joined forces to clamp down on trademark infringement - in May 2023 Amazon sued 29 of its own Marketplace sellers for selling fake Lithium-ion batteries that carried Canon branding.

According to Canon, batteries, printer ink and toner are common products to be counterfeited, likely due to their relative ease of production and potentially high profit margins. In response to the issue, Canon has become increasingly strict on which batteries can be used in its Cameras, with recent news reports claiming cameras like the EOS R5 Mark II are incompatible with third-party batteries . Preventing non-genuine ink and toner cartridges from working in a printer through the use of security chips has long been common practice. However, it should be noted that this latest Canon lawsuit isn't targeted at sellers of third-party, compatible toner cartridges clearly marketed as being non-genuine, but rather fake toners carrying the Canon logo and branding.

As with the counterfeit battery lawsuit in 2023, this issue continues to raise questions over Amazon's ability to police its own Marketplace platform. If Amazon already had tighter control over its Marketplace listings, fraudulent sellers could potentially never have been allowed to sell on the platform, and therefore counterfeit Canon products wouldn't have reached consumers.

Story credit: Digital Camera Watch