Intellectual property is an asset, sometimes one of the most important assets a company owns. Therefore, if you know your IP rights are being infringed upon by an online seller on Amazon or if you suspect they may be, you should be proactive about it.

IP rights violations are prohibited on Amazon. But although the Amazon marketplace has policies and tools to protect intellectual property, it is not yet able to completely eliminate illicit third-party sellers.

Wiser Market can be your supporting partner in this fight against IP infringements and counterfeits.

Type of IP Infringement

There are different types of intellectual property rights, mainly trademarks (legal protections that a company uses to identify its goods or services), copyrights (for original works of authorship) and patents (legal protections for inventions).

Trademarks are extremely important for brands. They can be different things used to distinguish the products or services of a particular source from others, such as a name, word, logo, symbol, design, figure, letter, mark or others. We all know many trademarks by recognizable brands, such as the Apple “missing bite”, the Nike phrase “just do it”, the Starbucks name and symbol, the Coca-Cola stylized font and many more.

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Report Infringement

So how to report trademark infringement? Amazon has tools to help.

As a rights owner, you can sign in if you already have an account or create a new account if you don’t have one.

After you sign into your account, you can file a notice of infringement to Amazon on Amazon’s Report Infringement form. This can be done directly or by an agent such as Wiser Market.

When filing an infringement report with the purpose of removing a counterfeit from Amazon, you will need certain documentation, such as the ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) for each version of the product or the URL of each product, the brand name, and your information. You will need additional information depending on the type of IP infringement, such as a registered trademark number to report a trademark infringement.

The infringement report affects only the listings of the domain you are on, so if your products are infringed upon in different domains (for example, amazon.com as well as amazon.co.uk), you need to submit a report for each domain.

In addition, IP owners don’t have ownership of their product detail page(s) on Amazon. All product detail pages belong to Amazon.com. As a result, you cannot report a seller for listing their product against your detail page. However, Amazon requires sellers to list only against detail pages that exactly match their items. If a seller does not comply with this requirement, you can report him to Amazon. You can also report if the item violates other IP rights, such as if the seller used your copyrighted image on his Amazon listing.

Removal from Amazon

After meeting its requirements, Amazon will remove the infringing listing. Make sure its truly removed and is not just listed as “unavailable”.

It’s recommended to use Amazon’s tools to protect your intellectual property on Amazon.

Rights owners with registered trademarks may be eligible to enroll their brands in the Amazon Brand Registry. This provides access to practical tools to help find counterfeits, such as proprietary text and image search.

Amazon Project Zero, launched with the goal to drive counterfeits to zero, is Amazon’s latest tool, now available for eligible brands only.

Distribution Rights

Exclusive distribution agreements and MAP policies are part of business. However, violations of agreements do not constitute intellectual property rights infringement. Therefore, such agreements cannot be enforced by Amazon.

Wiser Market: Online Brand Protection Agency

Wiser Market can help you protect your brand on Amazon. We have vast experience with protecting brands on Amazon, and are well acquainted with Amazon’s rules and regulations, allowing us to speed up the take-down process.

Chances are that if your products are counterfeited on Amazon or your trademark is otherwise violated, that this happens on other marketplaces, websites and social media channels. Wiser Market can scan all channels 24/7, enforce your IPR and remove IP infringing listings.

Our effective online brand protection strategy defends your brand’s revenue and reputation, resulting in an over 90% success rate.

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