APEX – Amazon’s Solution to Patent Dispute Resolution With the traffic Amazon generates, the e-commerce giant has become an essential, and perhaps even mandatory, marketplace for many companies to sell their products. Yet, companies selling on the platform can face several challenges, including dealing with third-party sellers who provide knockoff and copycat products. Even when a company is selling a product backed with patent protection, third-party sellers providing unlawful knockoff, copycat, or otherwise infringing products can persist and cut into a company’s profits. Patent protection can be a useful tool for guarding against such unlawful products on Amazon. However, traditional ways of enforcing this protection can be difficult and costly to implement. One traditional way can involve sending a cease-and-desist letter to

On April 18, 2023, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) updated the patent grant system to an electronic patent grant (“eGrant”) system. Previously, the USPTO issued patent grants to patent applicants via mail. In the mail system, applicants would typically receive their grant about two to four weeks after paying the issue fee for the patent. Soon, applicants will only have about a week from payment of the issue fee to file a continuing application. Under the eGrant system, patents now issue electronically through the USPTO’s electronic patent application filing and management system (“Patent Center”). The eGrant system was put into place to reduce paper waste, permit issued patents to be viewable and printable by applicants and the public