Online Retailers Beware – Amazon US Website Found to Target UK Consumers and Infringe UK Trade Marks

By: Robert Beveridge (Mills & Reeve)

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has upheld a Court of Appeal decision that Amazon’s US website targets UK consumers. This judgment addresses whether foreign traders are marketing to UK consumers. Following the decision, non-UK websites should reassess if they want to attract UK sales, as this might breach UK trademark law depending on how their website is configured.

The case of Lifestyle Equities CV and another v Amazon UK Services Ltd and others [2024] UKSC 8 focused on whether Amazon had infringed Lifestyle’s UK and EU trademarks for the Beverly Hills Polo Club brand by allowing identical goods to be listed on their US website, making them visible and easily purchasable by UK consumers. Identical trademarks are lawfully registered in the US by an unrelated company, but Lifestyle never consented to the marketing of these US-branded goods in the UK or EU. All parties agreed that targeting UK and EU consumers with these goods would constitute use of the trademarks and therefore infringement under trademark law in these territories…

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