You’ve taken the effort to register your trademark and you are using it to offer a product of which you are proud. Maybe you have an innovative product; maybe your quality or customer service set you apart in a crowded field. Whatever the basis of your trademark’s reputation, moving forward you have to “police” your mark.
Policing your mark
The intended purpose of a trademark is to offer a quick, reliable indication to the consumer of the origin and quality of the good or service carrying the mark. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) refers to this as “source designation.” What this means in practical terms is this: if the same mark is being used simultaneously on goods or services that have different sources or qualities, the mark is no longer a source identifier. When a mark loses that function, it becomes invalid and unenforceable. You lose your trademark.
If you are good at what you do, there will always be others who will try to take advantage of your reputation. In today’s world, a vast amount of commerce is conducted on the internet. One of the ways you can police your mark is to list it on the free Amazon Brand Registry. Once registered, Amazon itself will help make sure no false goods carry your mark.
What the Amazon Brand Registry does
Amazon intends for its Amazon Brand Registry to give sellers greater influence and control over their brand’s product listings on the Amazon Marketplace. Enrolled brands gain access to a suite of tools including:
Automated protections that use information about your brand to proactively remove suspected infringing or inaccurate content.
Global word and image searches to find and report potential infringers;
The ability to review and remove potential infringers from the Amazon Marketplace;
The ability to identify and remove product listings that aren’t for your brand but use your brand name, or identify images that contain your logo but are not your products;
The ability to identify sellers shipping products from countries in which you do not manufacture or distribute your brand; and
The ability to identify product listings created with your brand name when you have already listed your full product catalog on Amazon marketplace.
What is required to register
In order to be eligible to register, Amazon requires:
An active registered trademark in each country where you wish to enroll, or have a pending trademark application filed through Amazon IP Accelerator.
The trademark must be in the form of a text-based mark (word mark) or an image-based mark with words, letters, or numbers (design mark).
The trademarks must have been issued by government trademark offices in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, Spain, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the European Union, or the United Arab Emirates.
The trademark text must match the brand name on the application. If your trademark is an image-based mark with words, letters, or numbers, you must upload a copy of the image exactly as it appears on your trademark record.
The trademark you submit must also appear on your products or packaging.
You must submit the trademark registration number provided by the issuing Intellectual Property office. An application number provided by an Intellectual Property office can only be provided if you are enrolling with a trademark pending registration.
A list of product categories (such as apparel, sporting goods, or electronics) in which your brand should be listed.
From registering with the USPTO to registering with the Brand Registry, we can help
Henry Law will help you gain your registration with the USPTO. With that in hand, we can help you leverage your trademark in many ways, including taking advantage of the Amazon Brand Registry. Making you aware of free, automated tools to assist in policing your marks is just one of the ways we monitor developments in the field to help you derive the maximum advantage from your trademark registration.