Canadian Startup and Video Game Law Blog

Importance of Trademarks on Amazon’s Brand Registry

If you are an Amazon seller, it is highly recommended you obtain trademark protection for your brand and enrol in the Amazon Brand Registry.  Amazon’s Brand Registry provides a variety of tools to monitor brand representation and prevent the sale of counterfeit goods on Amazon.

in order to take advantage of the Amazon Brand Registry you first must have:

1. A trademark with an active or pending registration;
2. A trademark registration number, or application number granted that the trademark is pending registration; and
3. A list of categories that the brand falls under.

The Amazon Brand Registry provides registered users with the ability to directly address counterfeit products. Those suspected of being bad actors are automatically removed from Amazon and the sale of these counterfeit products halted. Through Amazon’s ‘Counterfeit Crimes Unit’, the company additionally holds bad actors responsible through “building cases, undertaking investigations, and pursuing civil litigation”. Furthermore, trademarked brands registered under the Amazon Brand Registry are protected under ‘Project Zero’, which offers several benefits:

1. Suspected counterfeits are proactively blocked from being listed on Amazon;
2. Brand owners can directly remove products they think are counterfeits, which information is fed into Amazon’s algorithms to better catch counterfeits proactively in the future; and
3. Product serialization allows brand owners to apply a 2D code similar to QR codes on their products that uniquely identifies and authenticates the legitimacy of their brand.

There are also numerous ways that the Amazon Brand Registry helps registered merchants grow, including:

1. Access to prioritized product advertisements, displayed on headlines of search pages;
2. Customizable brand storefronts and the ability to specify in-depth product descriptions; and
3. Prioritized search results that are pushed by Amazon’s internal algorithm.

If you have a brand you want trademarked in Canada or the US, please feel free to contact one of our IP attorneys. We are licensed to practise in both Canada and the US and can assist new business owners obtain trademark protection for Amazon Brand Registry enrolment.