AMAZON BRAND REGISTRY: AMAZON TRADEMARK REGISTRATION

Selling on Amazon is a great way to successfully build your business. However, the more you get profit and engage customers, the more protection is needed against cheap and unfair re-sellers trying to make money under your brand.

To be ahead of other market players and reliably secured, there is an opportunity of joining to Amazon Brand Registry. It provides such benefits and features as:

1. Report of violation tool: it allows brand owners to search by brand, trademark or product name and find all results. If similar or the same brand is found that likely infringe copyrights, there is an ability to quickly file an infringement application form.
2. Access to A+ content: it allows adding further text and images to product listings above the standard product description.
3. Access to product video and Amazon storefronts: it allows adding product videos to their listings and creating storefronts much easier.
4. Sponsored brand Ads: it allows appearing at the top of the page in Amazon search results.
5. Brand analytics: it allows aggregating customer search and purchase behavior data.
6. Amazon live creator: it allows live-streaming video and using the online chat with potential customers to answer their questions.

And a crucial determinant of access applying to these advantages is a registered trademark or its pending trademark application filed through Amazon IP Accelerator.

Generally, the following requirements to trademarks are established by Amazon Brand Registry:

1. Be registered under one of the specific trademark offices.

There an exclusive list of countries from which a registered trademark can be accepted. In particular, to apply for this program the trademark must be registered with one of the following countries at this time: United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, Spain, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates.

The brand name may be registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO“). In such a case the application should contain the corresponding trademark number given by the national office, as it may differ from the number assigned by the WIPO. Also, the trademarked name may be registered by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (“EUIPO“). Then the applicant should choose EUIPO as the trademark registrar. It should be remembered that not all trademark offices of the European Union members are included in the list: being registered in the country of the EU not specified in the list above does not mean you have a registered brand with the EUIPO.

Pay attention that you must have a trademark in each country where you wish to enroll to enforce the trademark rights. So to speak if you want to work with Amazon Brand Registry in the UK, then the trademark registration in the United Kingdom is required; or if you wish to sell products in the US market, then to be a participant of Amazon Brand Registry in the US, a federal trademark registration under USPTO is needed. Adding new marketplace can be done via Brand Registry Support instead of submitting a new application form.

2. Use a certain type of trademark in a proper way.

There exist two possible types of a trademark:

• text-based mark
• and image-based mark with words, letters, or numbers.

If it is the text-based mark, then the text should match the one indicated in the application form. If the image of a trademark contains words, letters or numbers, you are obliged to upload an exact copy of such image at the record to the application form. Otherwise, the form might be withdrawn by Amazon.

3. Select services corresponding to the chosen international classes.

By enrolling a brand to the Amazon Brand Registry, it is required to provide a list of product categories in which the brand will be listed. It is quite important for such a list to be matched with international classes chosen in brand registration for Amazon. Otherwise, you will be banned from applying for categories on Amazon that do not correlate with the ones selected while registering a brand name in the trademark office.

Only if mentioned conditions towards the registered trademark are met, Amazon Brand Registry Application will be satisfied. It should be noted that registration number (not a serial number) must be indicated in the form. Moreover, in order to be a player of Amazon Brand Registry, submission of the application form should be performed by the owner of the trademark. If your business has another person responsible for selling, then this accountable person should be added as an additional user of the account. Bear in mind, that signing in with existing Seller or Vendor Central credentials enable access to Brand Registry benefits linked to these services.

After application submission Amazon sends a verification code to the contact for the registered trademark (e.g. your attorney) which you should reach out to let them know they should be expecting the email from Amazon and ask for forwarding this email back to you. Consideration of application to Amazon Brand Registry should not take longer than 2 weeks for Amazon to complete the brand registry.

If you need any assistance with brand registration for Amazon in the United States, the United Kingdom or European Union, use the contact form to connect with lawyers.