Lifestyle Equities v Amazon: Amazon.com wasn’t “targeted” at UK shoppers, so trademark claim fails

What happened

Lifestyle Equities owns the Beverly Hills Polo Club trademarks in the UK and EU. A separate business, run by the claimant's estranged relatives, owns the rights to sell BHPC branded goods lawfully in the US. Lifestyle Equities argued that when those genuine US goods appeared on amazon.com, and were occasionally bought by UK or EU consumers through Amazon's Global Store service, this infringed its UK and EU trademark rights. Amazon had already introduced technical restrictions between 2018 and 2019 that progressively blocked UK and EU consumers from seeing or buying BHPC branded items through its site based outside the UK.

What did the court decide in Lifestyle Equities CV v Amazon UK Services Ld?

The court applied the established "targeting" test: a trademark is only infringed by a website based outside the relevant territory if that website is actually aimed at consumers there, not merely accessible to them. The judge found amazon.com and its BHPC listings were not targeted at UK or EU consumers. Historic sales that took place outside the UK, under the terms and conditions used there, were not "use of the sign in the course of trade" in the UK or EU. Only pre-2019 Amazon Global Store listings, which Amazon had already admitted targeted the UK, counted as infringing. But those sales were worth less than $2,000 across several years, so the court refused to order an inquiry into damages and refused an injunction, since Amazon's restrictions were already working.

What we learned from this

• What I'd take from this is that running a website based outside the UK doesn't automatically expose a business to UK trademark claims just because UK customers can technically reach it. The court looked hard at whether the site was actually aimed at UK shoppers.
• If you sell genuine goods abroad under a lawful parallel right, think about whether your website or marketplace listings are genuinely targeted at the UK, not just visible to it.
• Fixing a problem quickly and effectively can matter as much as winning the legal argument. Amazon's 2018 to 2019 restrictions were a big part of why no injunction was granted.
• Courts won't order expensive damages inquiries over trivial sums. Here, sales under $2,000 over several years weren't worth the cost of working out exact damages.

Things to be aware of

The businesses involved