Due to the increasing risks of counterfeiters and intellectual property violations, the eCommerce giant has taken massive steps towards expanding its Brand Registry Program. Amazon’s Brand Registry Program is a tool that grants brand owners greater opportunities to control and protect their brands. And the new updates to the Brand Registry Program made it quite different from the original Brand Registry Program within the Seller Central. It is no longer located in Seller Central, and it is now open for the sellers, vendors, and brands that have had no previous relationship with Amazon.
Brand Registry Program on Amazon is applicable to the sellers who are manufacturers and who sell their own branded products. Manufacturers can apply their brands on Amazon and register as the brand owner and list products and handle their brand identities on the marketplace more efficiently. Ideally, the Amazon Brand Registry Program allows manufacturers to enhance their online assortment.
Tools and Features for Brand Registry
- Proprietary text and image search. Brand owners and sellers can take a picture of a logo or text and upload it to the Brand Registry Program. Then Amazon will do a scan and show the results if anyone else is using that logo or text anywhere on the platform. This feature allows brand owners to flag things that might be a trademark or copyright inversion.
- Predictive automation based on reports of suspected intellectual property rights violations. This feature is based on user ship and machine learning. It will get better at finding intellectual property violations as more and more sellers start using it.
- Increased brand authority on the product detail pages. This feature is for brands that have a broad distribution network of authorized resellers. As “Item details” pages are created, misinformation or inaccurate information can be published about the brand. If sellers can prove that they are the authorized trademark owner, then they can request updates for any details pages associated with their brand.
How Brands and Sellers Can Get Started with the New Brand Registry
Head to brandservices.amazon.com to get started. Sellers and brand owners should use their existing Seller Central credentials because it will display the previous brands that were registered in the original system. Be aware that brands will not be enrolled in the new Brand Registry Program until Amazon verifies the trademark. Brands will need to be clicked on the invitation to start the enrollment process for the updated program. Amazon will then ask for more brand data from the owner, which helps them maintain an authoritative brand database.
Required Information to be accepted in the Updated Brand Registry Program
A brand needs to provide the following information to be accepted into the updated Brand Registry program:
- A live or active registered trademark.
- A Government Registered Principal Trademark Registration or Serial Number.
- 4 – STANDARD CHARACTER MARK or a
- 1 – TYPESET WORDS(S)/LETTER(S)/NUMBER(S)
- Visit uspto.gov for more resources
- Brand logo images.
- Images of the product and packaging with trademark shown.
- A list of the product categories of the brand should be listed on Amazon.
- A list of countries where the brand’s products are manufactured and distributed.
Brand owners and sellers will need to re-enroll in the new Brand Registry program if they enrolled in the older program before April 30, 2017. Be aware that the older Seller Central program will still be available but it won’t have any of the new tools or features.
More Helpful and tiny portion
Brand Registry does not cost anything at the moment. It’s a service Amazon is providing to brands for free.
- ‘Pending’ and ‘Approved-Pending Filing’ trademark statuses are not eligible for the new Brand Registry Program. Only ‘Active’ statuses are permitted into the program.
- If a seller has enrolled into the new Brand Registry Program in the past six weeks (since May 15, 2017) they will be in the program. Sellers can check the status of their enrollment by logging into the program with their Seller Central credentials at brandregistry.amazon.com.
- Brand Registry can only offer brand protection within the marketplace where the trademark is registered. For example, a U.S. trademark can only be protected on Amazon.com USA and not on any other marketplaces. The U.S. trademark will not have any authority in any other country.
- The new Brand Registry program is not a brand-gating tool. It’s not a tool to enforce distribution or pricing. Brand Registry is a tool used to combat trademark infringement, like copyrights and counterfeits.
This documentation is all about Amazon Brand Registry Update. Please keep reading our blog, we will come again with another important article about Amazon. If you have any questions regarding this article, please feel free to contact us. We would be glad to give answers to your questions.
