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The owner of a small business in Wales has expressed shock and disappointment after discovering that her card designs were being sold on Chinese-based retailer Temu’s website without her permission. Anwen Roberts, the owner of design company Draenog, said identical versions of her Welsh language products appeared on the site, having been copied without authorisation. Temu, which is owned by PDD Holdings and was valued this year at £117 billion, is a marketplace where third-party vendors offer their products directly to customers.
Ms Roberts said that it was tough for small businesses such as hers in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, to make a living and that this was an added pressure. As both the colouring and designs for the cards were the same, it was “just heartbreaking” for her to realise that “someone has used your work, put it out there and is potentially making money from something that I as a small business have created.”
She emphasised that small businesses like hers, which put many hours into designing and creating products, had a hard time having to report such instances. She added that it was also time-consuming and frustrating to search for such infringements and to learn about their rights. Temu has since removed the cards from its site, stating that it acted fast when potential infringements were reported.
Fflur Elin of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said research conducted by the FSB suggested that one in five small firms had encountered the copying of their work when using the largest platforms. According to Elin, many such firms feel powerless when taking such disputes to larger companies. In response, the FSB has called on the UK government to establish a system that allows for dispute resolution between larger and smaller companies and that is paid by “a mechanism that raises the fees from the big platforms”.
The Intellectual Property Office, a UK government unit, stated that combating IP violations online was a global and local issue, and that it collaborated with other groups to tackle this threat to businesses and consumers. The IPO revealed that it collaborated with major e-commerce platforms to remove goods that violated others’ IP rights or were counterfeit. The IPO mentioned that it had released guidelines to assist traders in safeguarding their IP rights on all major e-commerce websites, including Temu. If they suspect that goods are being sold on e-commerce sites or social media marketplaces that infringe their IP rights or that such rights are being violated, individuals can utilise the tools provided by these websites and report any infringement
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