When your IP report goes nowhere: what to do next

Do you have a right in what was copied

No refile, appeal or escalation fixes a report with no right behind it.

Copyright follows the picture, not the object. 17 U.S.C. 101 protects a design feature only where it incorporates features that "can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article", and a useful article is anything with "an intrinsic utilitarian function": a mug, a board, a garment, a pet bed. Star Athletica, decided March 22, 2017, set the separability test and then wrote the sentence that ends most copied-product reports: "If the feature could not exist as a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work on its own, it is simply one of the article's utilitarian aspects."

So the surface print on the tote is protectable and the shape of the tote is not. Your photograph is protectable, which is why a stolen-photo report behaves so differently from a copied-product report. One has a protectable work behind it. The other has nothing a claim can attach to.

Trademark does not fill the gap by default. Wal-Mart v. Samara, decided March 22, 2000, holds that "a product's design is distinctive, and therefore protectible, only upon a showing of secondary meaning", so an unregistered shape needs proof a young brand rarely has. Registered word marks and logos are different, and trademark claims live under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1114 and 1125(a).

A reseller of your genuine goods is not an infringer either. 17 U.S.C. 109(a) lets the lawful owner of a copy "sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy", so a report against that person is refused correctly, and 17 U.S.C. 512(f) makes a knowing misrepresentation actionable for damages, costs and fees. The reassuring half is the standard: Lenz, amended March 17, 2016, holds that the test "encompasses a subjective, rather than objective standard", so honest and wrong is generally safe. The same opinion requires you to consider fair use first and treats willful blindness as knowledge.

Settle which right covers which part of the copied listing before you refile. A generator for the statutory elements of a notice shows what a copyright claim must assert, and the notice and counter notice, element by element shows what the other side says back.

What do I do when a platform ignores my report

Refile through that platform's current portal with the one element that was missing, because the cheapest move is the one people skip on their way to the host. The only dated documented success in the research behind this page was not an escalation: an Etsy seller who could not get a report through was pointed at the current portal at etsy.com/ipreporting, refiled, and wrote on December 2, 2025 that the listing had come down. One case, not a rate, but it is the shape of the thing: a report that went nowhere usually went nowhere because of a form.

The refile itself changes four things.

• Per-page links, never a storefront URL. A shop home page gives a reviewer nothing to hold against your work. Name each page, one per line where the form allows it.
• The right claim target. On Amazon, a stolen photograph means you tick the image, not the product listing. The copyright-image claim is offered only on an image target, so a photo report filed against the listing arrives as a different claim and reads as unsupported. What to do when somebody takes over your Amazon listing covers the neighboring case.
• One right per report, with what that right needs. A trademark form wants the jurisdiction you claim rights in and a registration number where one applies. Meta's trademark form asks for exactly that pair, and a blank jurisdiction is a straightforward closure.
• One report per store, not one per listing. Shopify's form takes a list of URLs inside one complaint. The desk once sent several separate reports naming one host, which from the outside reads as a flood rather than a case. It now sends one notice per store.

There is a ceiling on this. Etsy reserves the right to "reject reports of infringement or counter notices that contain information we believe is false, fraudulent, incomplete, or otherwise submitted in bad faith", and to "take action against abusers of this policy". Article 23(2) of the Digital Services Act requires a platform to suspend processing notices from parties who frequently submit manifestly unfounded ones. The penalty for over-reporting is losing the channel, so a refile is a corrected report, never the same one sent twice.

Every channel here gives the accused party your name and email, so use a business address and a business phone on every form.

Evidence that survives a second look

A refile only works if the evidence answers the question the reviewer is asking, which is never "is this unfair" but "which work, whose, and where". Three things carry it.

• Your original beside their copy, both timestamped. Your photograph on the left, the seller's listing gallery on the right, a date on each. The pairing is what makes a stolen photo self-evident to somebody who has never seen your catalog.
• The exact URL set, and the registration numbers. Every page you are reporting, one per line, each resolving to the copy. A registration number, where one applies, goes on a trademark claim with the jurisdiction beside it. Copyright needs none, so give one there only if it is real.
• The chain of ownership. If a contractor shot the photographs or drew the artwork, the reviewer needs the work-made-for-hire agreement or the assignment that moved the copyright to your company. A claim from a company that does not own the work fails on authorization, which reads from outside exactly like silence.

Archive each page as you go: the copy comes down eventually, and a screenshot dated after the removal proves nothing.

Can a rejected notice be appealed in the EU

Yes, and the appeal belongs to you, the person who filed.

The Digital Services Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of 19 October 2022, gives the notifier three things. Article 16(4) requires the platform to "send a confirmation of receipt of the notice" without undue delay, and 16(5) to notify you of its decision "providing information on the possibilities for redress". A report that vanished without either is a documented failure. Article 20(1) gives anybody who submitted a notice a free internal appeal "for a period of at least six months following the decision", and 20(4) requires the platform to reverse itself where a complaint shows "that its decision not to act upon the notice is unfounded".

How to use it. The appeal surface is the one named in the redress information the platform owes you under 16(5). Article 17's statement of reasons goes to the accused seller rather than to you, so do not wait for a copy of it. Write four things: the reference number of the original notice, the date of the decision, the URLs still live, and one paragraph on why the refusal is unfounded under Article 20(4), naming the element the platform overlooked.

If that fails, Article 21(1) entitles you to select any certified out-of-court dispute settlement body, and you pick it from the list the European Commission publishes rather than being assigned one. The Commission states outright that "this right also applies to notices of illegal content that were rejected by the platform". Article 21(4) gives the body 90 calendar days, extendable once "resulting in a maximum total duration of 180 days". Article 21(5) puts its fees on the platform if you win and requires the process to be free or a nominal fee either way, which makes it the cheapest formal review in this guide.

One limit decides whether it is worth your afternoon. Article 21(2) says the body "shall not have the power to impose a binding settlement of the dispute on the parties". You get a reasoned finding and a paper trail, not an order, and court stays open at any stage.

What we do not solve

Five of the endings in this guide have no fix.

• No right exists in the shape of your product. A useful article's form is generally not copyrightable, and an unregistered design is not inherently distinctive as a mark. A report with nothing behind it fails at every rung.
• A genuine reseller of your goods is not a target. First sale puts that person in the clear, and a report against them is refused correctly. We do not help anybody chase their own resellers.
• Silence is lawful and unappealable in the United States. No obligation to answer, no published window, no regulator.
• The European out-of-court body cannot bind anybody. It produces a reasoned finding and a bill the platform pays, not an order.
• Under the statute, only a suit stops a restore. Once a valid counter notice lands, the 10 to 14 business day clock runs, and a court action is the sole thing that pauses it, with Etsy's Copyright Claims Board stopper as the only written exception.

See an intellectual property attorney before you file suit or a Copyright Claims Board claim, before you answer a 512(f) threat, and whenever the trade dress question matters more than the photograph. An hour of advice is cheaper than any of those filings.

And the limit on us. Knockoff watches your product photos across marketplaces and the open web, confirms a match only when your photograph appears in the seller's own listing gallery, and hands over each case with the archived page and a timestamped screenshot. Knockoff files the notice as your authorized agent on platforms that accept an agent filing. The removal decision belongs to the platform, so we do not promise one. Knockoff is not a law firm, and this is general information, not legal advice.