Amazon is the leading platform for brand owners and entrepreneurs who wish to establish and legitimize their brands online. These types of business owners tend to capitalize on Amazon’s popularity and broad reach.
If you intend to sell on Amazon and establish your brand, it’s crucial to know how to protect your brand and customers from counterfeiters and other “bad actors.” This discussion will cover Amazon Brand Registry and how it helps you safeguard your brand on Amazon.
What is Amazon Brand Registry?
“What is Amazon Brand Registry?” is a common question among newbie Amazon sellers and even experienced sellers who are new to brand protection. Amazon Brand Registry is a program designed to help Amazon sellers and other sellers not directly selling on Amazon legitimize and protect their brands on Amazon. It’s a free resource that aids brand owners in protecting their intellectual property (IP), managing product listing accuracy, and utilizing various tools to grow their brand on the Amazon marketplace.
To emphasize the significance of Brand Registry on your brand and Amazon business, it is essential to recognize that this brand protection resource focuses on four key areas:
- Robust and proactive measures to safeguard our store.
- Cutting-edge tools that allow rights owners to collaborate with us for enhanced brand protection.
- Innovations in holding bad actors accountable.
- Enhanced customer protection and education.
As a testament to Amazon’s dedication to protecting both Amazon sellers and Amazon shoppers, it invested more than $1.2 billion in additional resources. Apart from tech updates, Amazon likewise employed experts to help improve protection for customers, selling partners, and brands from counterfeit, fraud, and other forms of abuse.
How Does the Amazon Brand Registry Program Work? | Brand Registry Resources for Amazon Sellers
Amazon Brand Registry equips sellers and brand owners with essential tools and resources to verify their brands and prevent bad actors, including counterfeiters and fraudsters, from exploiting their businesses.
Essentially, Amazon’s Brand Registry offers comprehensive protection for both sellers and customers, deterring bad actors through various features.
Key Features of Amazon Brand Registry:
Automated Protections: Brand registry prevents harmful listings before they are published. By providing data about your brand, products, and intellectual property, Amazon utilizes advanced machine learning to implement predictive protections that stop bad listings.
Violation Report: One of the key features of the Brand Registry is the Violation Report. This tool allows you to swiftly search the Amazon catalog for potential trademark, copyright, patent, and design rights violations. When you find any infringements, you can report them immediately, ensuring the protection of your brand.
Brand Registry Support: Amazon sellers also receive assistance from specialists when using Brand Registry. These experts will help you resolve technical issues, listing problems, policy violations, and more.
Neutral Patent Evaluation: Amazon’s Brand Registry likewise gives you access to a faster and less expensive method of handling patent disputes. Amazon has third-party evaluators to determine whether the utility patent has been infringed, and their decisions are enforced in the U.S. Amazon store.
Impact Dashboard: Amazon’s Brand Registry gives sellers and brand owners access to a reliable dashboard. The dashboard provides users with helpful insights about their brand and how they can protect it.
Educational Resources: Amazon also provides helpful resources and answers to frequently asked questions, including tips and guides for using Brand Registry features. Thus helping you generate more sales for your business.
These Amazon Brand Registry resources collectively ensure a safer and more trustworthy marketplace, making the Amazon marketplace safer not just for shoppers but also for online sellers, entrepreneurs, and brand owners.
Brand Registry Benefits for Amazon Businesses
Since its launch in 2017, Amazon Brand Registry has made it easier for brand owners to protect their businesses by quickly searching and reporting trademark, copyright, and patent infringement issues on the Amazon marketplace. Fast-forward to the present, Amazon Brand Registry continues to help online sellers and entrepreneurs, especially with:
Better Forgery Detection
Improved document forgery detection, advanced image and video verification, and machine learning resources have streamlined the detection of forgery. These advancements enabled Amazon to thwart suspicious individuals attempting to create new selling accounts, resulting in a substantial decrease in forgery attempts.
Decreased Notice of Infringement
Amazon Brand Registry has significantly reduced valid notices of infringement. Since 2020, these notices have decreased by more than 30%. This improvement is due to Amazon’s implementation of advanced machine learning models, including large language models, which can detect various types of infringement, including complex visual intellectual property.
Abuse Prevention
Amazon Brand Registry helps prevent abuse across its platform while holding bad actors accountable. A testament to its impact is the recent seizure and disposal of more than 7 million counterfeit products worldwide.
Amazon also strengthened its cross-border anti-counterfeiting partnerships with global brands and law enforcement, leading to successful identification, raids, detention, and criminal convictions of bad actors.
Information Drive
Brand Registry on Amazon has allowed the eCommerce giant to improve its information dissemination by collaborating with industry experts and associations to educate consumers about the dangers of purchasing counterfeit listings or products. Most notably, Amazon partnered with the Trademark Association and DECA for its Unreal Campaign Challenge, in which students were asked to create a 60-second video about the dangers of purchasing counterfeits.
Access to Amazon Seller Tools
Brand owners are also afforded access to premium Amazon seller tools, such as Amazon Ads, Brand Analytics, and the Amazon Store for a multi-page Store for better brand visibility and promotion.
Additionally, they can enhance product detail pages with A+ Content (previously known as Enhanced Brand Content), allowing customization of modules to effectively showcase product benefits and features. This tool also provides details on product assembly and other critical considerations, addressing common customer questions and simplifying purchasing decisions.
Is a Trademark Required for Amazon’s Brand Registry?
Amazon Brand Registry requires business owners to have a registered trademark. To facilitate this, Amazon has introduced the Amazon IP Accelerator. This program links sellers with reliable IP law firms, offering top-quality trademark registration services at competitive rates. The key advantage of enrolling in the IP accelerator program is that you can start enjoying the benefits of Brand Registry, even while your trademark application is still in the works.
Amazon Brand Registry Eligibility Requirements
To qualify for Brand Registry, confirming your eligibility for the program is essential. Here is an overview of key eligibility requirements for Amazon Brand Registry:
Trademark Requirement
As discussed earlier and highlighted in Amazon Seller Central, a trademark is necessary for Brand Registry. You must either have an active trademark or a pending trademark application through Amazon IP Accelerator in each country where you wish to enroll. The trademark can be either text-based (word mark) or image-based with words, letters, or numbers (design mark).
Accepted Trademark Offices
Amazon only accepts trademarks issued by specific national trademark offices, including those in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Sweden, Poland, Benelux, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates.
Applicants must provide the corresponding national trademark office number for trademarks registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). For trademarks registered with EUIPO, select EUIPO as the registrar in your application.
Matching Brand Name
Another eligibility requirement is to ensure that the trademark text or image-based mark matches the brand name used in your application.
Presence on Products
Your trademark must appear on your products or packaging to be eligible for Brand Registry.
Application Submission
Regarding Brand Registry submissions, the trademark must be submitted by the trademark owner or an authorized agent acting on the applicant’s behalf.
To learn more about enrolling your brand in the Brand Registry on Amazon, you may refer to the guide below:
Protect Your Business Today With Brand Registry
Counterfeiters will always attempt to sell fake or knock-off products, whether on Amazon or other online platforms. Utilizing the Amazon Brand Registry Program as a proactive approach to avoid falling victim to counterfeiters.
Amazon Brand Registry helps decrease the number of bad actors and expedites investigations of potential intellectual property infringement, safeguarding both your Amazon business and your customers.
Complementing your use of Brand Registry with other Amazon seller tools can unlock the full potential of your Amazon business. An Amazon repricer can help you offer competitive prices to your customers, increase customer engagement, and help you win the Amazon Buy Box. At the same time, Amazon keyword research tools and listing optimization tools can significantly improve your brand’s visibility in the highly competitive Amazon marketplace.
