I flip textbooks so I buy textbooks and immediately sell them to other companies. I purchased 10 copies of a book from a seller on Amazon and immediately sold them to textbooks.com and received payment for the books. About a month later, I got a letter from the publisher's lawyer saying that they were informed by textbooks.com that I was selling counterfeit books. I called the lawyer and informed him of where I purchased the books and explained that I never had the books in my possession for more than 24 hours. He seemed to understand what happened and I was under the impression that he wasn't going to pursue it any further. Today, the lawyer sent me an email with a settlement agreement that includes a paragraph that says I am agreeing to pay $500 in the settlement. I'm not sure if location matters but I am in Florida and the settlement says it is under the law of New York. What should I do?
What happens often is that trademark holders will see goods for sale online that they suspect are infringing on their rights and the trademark holders will purchase one of the items to confirm. Unlike many trademark disputes, proving infringement when it involves counterfeit goods can be easy. Counterfeits by their nature cause consumer confusion.
The penalties for counterfeiting goods can be far greater than they are for other forms of infringement. There are both civil and criminal penalties possible, and the legal actions possible are not confined to trademark infringement.
What you will want to do with the settlement agreement you received is have it reviewed by an IP attorney in your area to check for authenticity. If the letter is a legitimate one, and the goods are shown to be counterfeits (and, again, this is fairly easy to show), you can have your attorney work with the trademark holder to see if the $500 amount demanded can be negotiated lower.
You can check out at
http://www.uspto.gov Lanham Act 1117 Recovery for violation of rights.