Protecting Your Brand: Amazon Brand Registry and Transparency
Amazon continues to put a number of measures in place that help sellers protect their brand. Amazon Brand Registry and Amazon Transparency are two major initiatives that help brands maintain their brand credibility. On July 10, 2019, The Transparency Program also expanded to Europe, India and Canada.
AMAZON BRAND REGISTRY
Amazon Brand Registry helps you verify and protect the authenticity of your brand. Enrolling your brand in the program provides you with tools that can help you find and report violations on unauthorized product pages.
Brand Registry allows you to find product listings on Amazon that match your products or logos and then provides a guide to submit reports. There is 24/7 Amazon support to help protect your intellectual property if any issues arise.
STEP ONE – Review Eligibility Requirements.
Eligibility requirements vary by country. You can review the requirements here.
United States Eligibility Requirements
- Trademark organization: United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
- Statutes: Trademark must have a live registration issued and active in the principal register
- Text-based marks: 1 – Typeset Word(s)/ Letter(s)/ Number(s); 4 – Standard Character Mark
- Image-based marks: 3 – An Illustration Drawing which includes Word(s)/Letter(s)/ Number(s); 5 – Words, Letters, or Numbers in a Stylized Form
Mexico Eligibility Requirements
- Trademark organization: Marcas Instituto Mexicano de Propiedad Industrial (IMPI)
- Statutes: Trademark must be registered
- Text-based marks: Nominativa
- Image-based marks: Mixta; Nominativa + Innominada o Diseño; Innominada o Diseño
Troubleshooting: When getting set up with Brand Registry, be diligent about punctuation, uppercase and lowercase letters. The trademark text must match the brand name on the application exactly. Ensure that this information matches before submitting your application.
STEP TWO – Logging in to Brand Registry
Use your Vendor or Seller Central credentials to sign in. Using the same username and password will enable you to access Brand Registry features and benefits that are linked to Vendor and Seller services.
STEP THREE – Enroll your Brand
You will need to provide the following information:
- Your brand name that has an active registered trademark.
- The associated government-registered trademark number.
- A list of product categories (e.g., apparel, sporting goods, electronics) in which your brand should be listed.
- A list of countries where your brand’s products are manufactured and distributed.
YOUR BRAND REGISTRY RECORDS: It’s important to stay aligned internally, especially with your Brand Registry account. Make sure you always have the following on hand in case of Brand Registry program changes or in case internal roles shift. Keep track of:
- Who registered the account/name/emails
- Users under the brand name
- Records and proof of documentation that you are the brand owner
AMAZON TRANSPARENCY
Amazon Transparency is an item-level tracing service that helps brand owners protect their brand and customers from counterfeit. Transparency allows brands to associate each unit they manufacture with a unique code and allows any customer to authenticate any Transparency-enabled product, regardless of where they purchase the product (Amazon, other ecommerce sites, brick and mortar stores, etc.).
Enrollment Requirements
- Ability to verify yourself as the brand owner for your products.
- You can use a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), a UPC or EAN barcode on your products.
- Ability to apply unique Transparency codes on every unit you manufacture.
The program has been in place for two years now and just this week has announced that it will roll out in more countries, allowing brands to help establish their brand’s authenticity worldwide.
Looking to get your brand set up with Brand Registry or Amazon Transparency? We can help: