In the midst of AI campaigning, you may have thought we’d taken our foot off the TEMU pedal.

We most certainly haven’t!

Since Spring Fair, we’ve worked hard to achieve open lines of communication with TEMU, who are proving very open to our requests, advice and feedback.

Firstly, thank you to all of you who responded with your thoughts and ideas following the article we published about our first online meeting with TEMU in March.  At our second meeting in May, we were able to use this feedback,  along with our own,  to further move these conversations forward for the benefit of the entire design community.

On 28^th May, Laura, Marion and Dids met with representatives from TEMU’s (intellectual property) IP Protection team. They explained to us in great detail the extent of their understanding of UK IP rights, including design, and the processes they had in place to both verify IP ownership and manage any challenges brought between sellers and non-sellers with regards to IP ownership.

However, TEMU recognises there is still extensive work to be done in the seller vetting and onboarding processes, the extensive image copyright infringement and management of repeat offenders. TEMU fully understand ACID’s position on this and the frustrations of our members having to repeatedly submit take down requests for the same images from the same or different sellers and seem very keen to address these concerns.

ACID stated to TEMU that, should take down requests be required, the end goal is to make sure ACID members are only ever having to submit these once and that the evidence they provide is used proactively by TEMU to inform their algorithms for any existing or new sellers, to flag potential infringements and immediately manage these so our members, and the design community as a whole, can get on with what matters most – running their businesses.

ACID explained the strict Code of Conduct our members adhere to and our promotion of IP ethics, compliance and respect.  TEMU has been extremely interested in ACID’s IP Databank since conversations first began, so we’re now exploring a model where this can be deemed a single source of evidenced-based truth for IP ownership through ACID acting as a trusted 3^rd party verification service for our members’ submissions. Watch this space!!

TEMU would also welcome the opportunity to have a conversation with a group of ACID members, to hear their concerns and experiences. Though we know you’ll all be champing at the bit to be part of this, we have limited spaces available to ensure a proactive session so we will offer these on a first come first served basis primarily to those who have contacted us about TEMU or submitted case studies first.  ACID have explained to TEMU that the biggest issue amongst our members is trust and that our members will of course be willing to engage in proactive talks with them provided their feedback is taken on board to assist TEMU make efficient improvements.

Though we know how frustrating the infringement situation is for you all, we do feel encouraged by TEMU’s openness to positive engagement. It is almost unheard of to have this direct contact with an online marketplace Goliath and, though we’ll not count any IP chickens before they hatch, we really feel excited we could achieve something ground-breaking here for our members.

Thank you, as ever, for your continued support and information sharing. We’ll keep you updated on these developments as things unfold.