If you sell on Amazon, you have probably run into a wall. While you can sell products under a generic label, if you want to sell under a brand name you have to register with Amazon Brand Registry. That is what gives you a branded storefront, the ability to report counterfeiters, and access to exclusive marketing tools.
The thing that surprises most sellers is that Amazon requires a pending or registered trademark application before you can apply.
What Amazon requires
To enroll a brand, you need one of two things:
- An active registered trademark from an approved government intellectual property office, or
- A pending trademark application.
The mark also has to be the right kind of mark. You will need either a word mark or a design mark that contains the brand name. A purely graphic design mark, such as a logo with no wording, will not be sufficient.
Why Amazon insists on this
Brand Registry is not a loyalty program. It gives you the power to have infringing listings altered or removed, based on your ownership of the mark.
Amazon relies on the government's determination of trademark ownership rather than attempting to make its own. In the United States, you apply for a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Word mark or design mark?
When submitting a trademark application, you can file it as a word mark or a design mark.
“Any color or font. The words are protected however you use them.”
“Exactly as registered. Change an element and you likely need a new application.”
A design mark can have words incorporated into it, but that does not mean the words on their own are protected the way they would be with a word mark.
Most brands will end up with multiple trademarks to protect everything — names, logos, slogans, products, and services. If you can only file one to get started, the word mark for the brand name itself is usually the one to choose.
The exact-match rule
The brand name you use on Amazon must match the trademark exactly.
Amazon gives a helpful example. If your trademark is “Buy with Prime” but you try to use the brand name “BuywithPrime,” Amazon will deny the application.
Differences in capitalization are accepted. Everything else has to match exactly, including punctuation and spacing.
The same principle applies at the USPTO. The specimen you submit has to match the mark in the application itself.
So before you even submit your trademark application, think about how you will actually use the mark — on packaging, in advertising, and on social media.
The verification code goes to whoever is on the trademark record
When you file a trademark, you provide a public contact for that mark. If you use a law firm, the contact is typically the attorney.
Once you submit your Brand Registry application, Amazon verifies that you are the rightful owner by messaging the contact on the trademark record. This is usually an email, and it contains a verification code.
The contact then has to give you that code so you can confirm you are the owner. Which means whoever is listed on your trademark record effectively controls your enrollment.
The application must come from the trademark owner
Amazon requires the Brand Registry application to be submitted by the owner of the trademark.
So if the mark is registered to your supplier, to a company you have since dissolved, to your co-founder personally, or to an entity that does not match the one running your seller account, enrollment stalls. Assignments can be recorded to fix this, but it is far better to have it corrected before you begin applying.
What you unlock
Enrollment is free once you hold the trademark, and it opens up two different sets of tools.
- Protection. Report a Violation for counterfeits and listing hijacks, automated protections, and access to programs such as Transparency for item-level authentication.
- Selling and marketing. A+ Content on your detail pages, a branded Store, Brand Analytics, and eligibility for programs including Amazon Vine.
You can enroll in Brand Registry even if you do not sell in the Amazon store. Some brands enroll purely so they can monitor whether someone else is trying to use their brand.
Where sellers go wrong, in short
- Registering a design mark when they actually needed a word mark
- Filing the name with spacing that does not match the packaging
- Listing the wrong owner or public contact on the trademark application
- Not running a name search on the mark before it is submitted
Every one of these is a decision made at filing, which is why the trademark and the Amazon strategy really want to be planned together rather than in sequence.
Before you file
Search first. A name already registered by someone else for similar goods will not register for you, and finding that out after you have committed to packaging is the expensive way to learn it. Our walkthrough of searching the USPTO database covers the method, and there is a free worksheet in the resource library.
If you would rather it were handled, our flat-fee trademark registration includes the clearance search, the application, correspondence with the examiner, and getting the ownership and correspondence details right the first time, so the Amazon verification step is not a surprise.
Amazon changes its program requirements from time to time. Confirm the current rules in the Brand Registry portal before you enroll.
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This article is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Rules differ by state and change over time. Please speak with a licensed attorney about your own situation.