Unified Brands Aims to Combat Counterfeiters

On March 3, 2021, Unified Patents launched a new subsidiary, Unified Brands, which aims to combat counterfeiters on behalf of SMEs on a ‘no cost’ basis. Unified Brands will work with small businesses to recover proceeds of counterfeiting. “Fundamentally we troll counterfeiters on behalf of companies that have counterfeiting problems,” says Shawn Ambwani, chief operating officer (COO) of Unified Patents.

As a subsidiary of Unified Patents with over 200+ international membership organization, we are very good at deterring others from profiting off IP that isn’t theirs. We scrape online marketplaces, such as Amazon, Wish, Alibaba, AliExpress, and others, to find these counterfeiters. When counterfeit products are found online, Unified Brands will protect a brand from counterfeiting and deter counterfeiters from going after that brand specifically.

Unified Brands makes money when enforcement is successful and action is taken against a range of counterfeiters selling on online marketplaces to US consumers. After paying the lawyers, Unified Brands splits whatever earned from the infringers 50-50 with the client.

Read more about Unified Brands in this great article by Trevor Little at Law Business Research.

Unified Comments on USPTO Discretionary Denials

On December 3, 2020, Unified, along with over 800 commenters, answered the USPTO's request for comments (RFC) related to their recent use of "discretionary" non-merits denials and potential future rulemaking. Early analysis of the 832 comments submitted reveals the breakdown was relatively evenly split for and against, with many form-filled or irrelevant comments. In our comments, Unified highlighted the prejudicial nature of the RFC itself, the lack of statutory authority to implement discretionary denial rules, and the USPTO's lack of data supporting the policy behind their new de facto rules.

Many Unified members submitted their own helpful comments. Thanks again to in-house counsel, Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani, and everyone who contributed to putting the comments together. Read Unified’s comments below.

Comments of Unified Patents to USPTO RFC by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd