Overview

Selling on Amazon is nearly ubiquitous, so it’s imperative to protect your brand – your trademark – across the platform. Amazon has made it easier to do so by overhauling its Brand Registry last year and creating, in their own words, “an accurate and trusted experience for customers.” As a brand owner, you must have a dual focus on strengthening and protecting your brand while also engaging and serving your customers. The Amazon Brand Registry supports this dual focus.

The Amazon Brand Registry allows brand owners the ability to easily update their product listings and forestall others from changing them—you alone have control over presentation and descriptive details of your products. The Registry also offers tools such as proprietary text and image search for easier location and identification of counterfeiters.

According to Amazon, the Registry supplies predictive automation based on a brand owner’s previous reports of suspected intellectual property rights violations. Amazon says, “Enrolling a brand in the Brand Registry and registering as the brand owner does not prevent other sellers from selling the branded products.” But, brand owners can speed up the removal of counterfeit or inauthentic products being sold via Fulfillment by Amazon.

Requirements for Registration

Most importantly, you must have a registered trademark in order to enroll in the Brand Registry. Amazon requires you to provide the registration number and all registration details, including an image of the trademark, images of products and packaging with the registered trademark clearly visible, a list of product categories, and a list of countries where the products are manufactured and distributed. Also needed is the brand website and an associated email address.

Once the required information is submitted, Amazon will review and verify it within 1-2 weeks and send a verification code to the contact person or lawyer associated with the registered trademark. The brand owner then provides the code to Amazon for final approval.

Benefits

The primary benefit of enrolling is the increased control over your brand and your products. Brand owners alone will have control over the titles, details, and images on their product listings, without interference or tampering by outside entities. You can utilize Amazon’s Enhanced Brand Content, which allows for enhanced images, text placement, and a unique story to be added to your product listings. And brand owners may see expedited ad approval and easier ad changes.

For the brand owner, this translates into more sales and a stronger brand. For the customer, this translates into an enhanced and satisfying shopping experience.

Considerations

Take the time to register your trademark. You may want to consider multiple registrations – for instance, registering both your logo and your brand name in words. While the initial costs may seem daunting for an individual or small company just starting out, the benefits are certain to outweigh the costs in most circumstances.

You can still sell on Amazon even if you do not own a registered trademark, but the benefits of the Brand Registry are hard to ignore. There is no added cost to enroll.

Give your lawyer a head’s up if you are planning to enroll in the Amazon Brand Registry. They should know to expect an email with the verification code. Your trademark lawyer should be used as a resource to counsel you on how best to protect your brand with Amazon and everywhere else.

If you have questions about trademark registration or intellectual property, contact the trademark and intellectual property attorneys at Panitch Schwarze at 888-291-5676 or trademarks@panitchlaw.com.