Responding to a design patent infringement claim

Help needed.

I recently got involved in selling on eBay and Amazon in what’s called “Private Label” FBA.

I found a company using Alibaba.com before the end of last year and they manufactured arrange of products including neck /scarf travel pillows which were similar to a product on the market called “Trtl travel Pillow”. https://uk.trtltravel.com/products/trtl-travel-pillow

The manufacturer is from China and they explained to me that they manufacture neck/scarf travel pillow like the Trtl travel pillows but their ones were different in two significant ways;

1) The support was made out of memory foam pillow and not a plastic frame
2) The material that they used for the fabric was soft cotton and not the fleece fabric on the other product.

After a bit of research, I noted that some of the customer feedback with the original product was the firmness and also how people got too hot with the fleece scarf around their neck.

Anyway fast forward. I customised the product supplied by the Chinese manufacturer (selected a memory foam pillow instead of the plastic frame and also used a cotton fabric which makes sure that the user is more cooler and doesn’t get them sweaty and uncomfortable whilst the using the item).

I designed my own name private label/logo for this item as the “Snoozz easy Pillow” and the Chinese manufacturer was able to make this for me as part of the package. I ordered 500 units and had them shipped to me in the UK with the intention of selling these on eBay and Amazon.

The listing went live roughly in May 2019 and I’ve managed to sell a handful of these products, then I received an email from eBay stating that they had received an infringement report from a company by the name of “Coolside ltd”. Informed them that they were the rights owner and that I had breached copyright laws. eBay provided me with a contact email for them is; trtl-bp@redpoints.com.

I have now received a block on my Amazon listing and an email from Amazon stating that they had received a report of a breach of “Design Patent Infringement” which was claimed by a company called “convey.it” and that I should contact them directly via their email of enforcement@convey.it.

Having a look at the patent description and claims of the Trtl neck travel pillow, we believe that there are enough differences between the two products and we are seeking advice to the best course of action.

The frame used in the Trtl’s product (fig 7 on their patent document) is a different design to the product I had manufactured in China. They have an H type skeleton frame/structure. In fact, in their patent, it is described as “comprises a single piece of resilient polymeric material” whereas ours is a whole pillow shape made from memory foam.

I also believe that the fabric used in the Trtl product is of fleece material whereas the snoozz easy pillow fabric is cotton.

I would, therefore, like help from someone who is a specialist IP litigator, on the following;

1) Review the patent & compare the two product to confirm if I have infringed any design patent or copyright laws.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=en.worldwide.espacenet.com&II=0&ND=6&adjacent=true&FT=D&date=20180918&CC=WO&NR=2013178979A1&KC=A1

2) To advice me on the best course of action;
3) Draft a letter to the company who reported my product or to write a DMCA counter-notice if I haven’t breach design patents/copyright legislation
4) Set out a plan of action in order to get the approval to continual selling snoozz easy pillow.

If you could help me or point me in the right direction that would be great.

If you are able to help could you also set out your fees so that I can get a clear picture as to the value of continuing with this project as I currently have just under 500 units still left.

Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.