American Eagle Outfitters took Amazon to court, alleging that the e-commerce giant infringed on the clothing company's "Aerie" and "Offline by Aerie" trademarks, leading customers to knock-offs.
On Wednesday, American Eagle filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit states that Amazon carried out a "flagrant, unauthorized use" of the trademarks Aerie and Offline by Aerie on the website in order to lead consumers to believe that the products were available on the platform.
The lawsuit alleged that when a customer would look for Aerie products on Google, there will be sponsored, as well as organic links leading to the Amazon website. The link then leads to pages with knock-offs of Aerie exercise shorts and sweatshirts among others.
The complaint alleges that such action drives traffic to Amazon, and when customers are already on the website, they are offered with a competing merchandise.
American Eagle did authorize Amazon to sell products coming from its Aerie line, which include lingerie, loungewear, yoga pants, and other attire. It underscored that it "intentionally declined so Aerie can foster its own brand identity and customer experience," according to a report on CNBC.
American Eagle, which launched the Aerie brand in 2006. said that it already informed Amazon about the issue of the infringing products. However, the company noted that the products were not labeled exactly like "Aerie" but were spelled differently like "Arie," or "Aeries."
"These ads are intended to (and do) trick customers into thinking that by clicking the provided link, they will be able to 'Shop Aerie' or 'Save on Offline by Aerie' on the 'Official Amazon Site,'" the complaint alleges.
"These statements are patently false because customers cannot shop for Aerie products on Amazon," it further stated.
A lot of knock-offs that the lawsuit referring to were being sold by third-party sellers on the platform. American Eagle seeks damages on the alleged infringement and also an injunction.
This is not the first time that Amazon encountered such a complaint. The Washington Post reported that in 2017, Birkenstock CEO accused Amazon of "modern-day piracy." A year before that, the company announced that it would be pulling out products from the e-commerce platform due to the rising number of knock-offs. The same was the stance of Daimler AG, after it discovered counterfeit Mercedes-Benz wheels being sold on the platform by a third-party seller.
