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Reporting Infringement on Amazon

By: Eric Karich, Registered Patent and Trademark Attorney

 If you are or are planning to be an Amazon seller, it is important to make sure that the goods you are selling, and the content of your listings, do not violate intellectual property or you could lose your selling privileges.  If you believe that a product listing or a seller is infringing on your trademark, patent, or copyright, you may use tools provided by Amazon to take action. 

Note that Amazon is concerned only with issues specifically regarding intellectual property rights, not contract violations, business disputes, etc.  As the enforcement of these agreements is a matter between the manufacturer and the resellers, Amazon does not assist in this type of enforcement activity.  You can submit a trademark, copyright, patent, or other IP claim.

If your brand is enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, you can submit a report via the Report a Violation (RAV) tool or through the Report Infringement form.  If you are not enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, you can submit via the Report Infringement form.  In addition, it is a requirement that a notice submitter be logged into an Amazon account in order to use the Report Infringement form or Brand Registry’s RAV tool.

For reference, trademark infringements tend to be one of three types, described below.

 

  • ASIN-level infringement: If a product or product packaging available on Amazon bears your trademark but you do not make that product, then you may report the entire ASIN, or entire product detail page, for trademark infringement.
  • Product detail page infringement:Further, if your trademark is being used on the product detail page, but the product being sold is not your product, you may report use of the trademark on the product detail page as infringing.
  • Seller-Level Infringement:If you believe a particular offer from a Seller is listing a product that infringes your trademark, then you may report that offer as infringing. However, expect the product detail page and ASIN to remain live if you report an offer. When you report an offer, and not an entire ASIN, you are only referring to the offer for infringement, not the entire ASIN or product detail page. It is also helpful to provide a test buy with a valid Order ID to support your report.

For any infringement claim, you should include the following information in your report:

  • Specific identification of the IP you believe is infringed: trademark, copyright, or patent registration number; written description of or link to copyrighted work; etc.
  • Nature of infringement (whether infringement occurs on the product, physical product packaging, image on the product detail page, or text on the product detail page).
  • List of infringing products (either Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) or URLs for the product detail page of the specified product). If you believe that only a subset of sellers are infringing, and you are not accusing the entire product detail page, click the checkbox next to the name of each seller you are reporting in the Report Infringement form or RAV.
  • Any additional information that will help Amazon in processing your complaint (such as order IDs for any test buys on the products you are reporting).
  • Your contact details (name, address, phone number, email address, and secondary contact details that we can share with affected sellers .).

 

If your notice is valid, Amazon will inform the responsible sellers about your claim and share your secondary contact information with them should they have any follow-up questions.

If your notice of infringement is accepted, the reported content will be removed, and further action may be taken against the infringing sellers.  However, specific actions are confidential.

If your notice of infringement is rejected, Amazon will not take action against the seller.  You will receive a notification with the reason for rejection of your notice.

 

For further information and guides for selling on Amazon, you may visit:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G2

Or contact Amazon’s seller support team:

  • Canada & US: 1-800-372-8066. You can call them from Sunday to Saturday any time (pacific time) between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m.
  • International: The customer service number is 1-206-922-0880. You can request them to transfer the call to the respective support program. Also, make a note that charges for long distance calls will apply. You can call them from Sunday to Saturday any time (pacific time) between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m.