If you sell on Amazon, and you’re reading this, you probably heard about the company’s first seller summit, Boost with FBA. The summit was held this past week, June 27-28, in New York City. About 1,500 attendees were present, and we had someone there live streaming the entire event. In our opinion, much of the content was focused on the fundamentals and not overcomplicated. But there were several golden nuggets I’d like to focus on. In this post, I’m going to focus on Katie Tompkins’—Sr. Channel Manager of Merchant Technologies at Amazon—presentation on the updated Brand Registry program.

New Tools and Features in the Updated Amazon Brand Registry Program

Amazon’s updated Brand Registry program is completely new and different from the original Brand Registry program within Seller Central. It no longer lives in Seller Central, and it’s open to sellers, vendors, and brands that have had no prior relationship with Amazon. The updated program allows brand owners to take control and protect their brands.

Brand Registry Tools and Features

• Proprietary text and image search. Brand owners and sellers can take a photo of a logo or text and upload it to the Brand Registry program, then Amazon will do a scan and show results of anything or anyone using the logo or text anywhere on the platform. This feature allows brand owners to flag things that might be a trademark or copyright infringement.
• Predictive automation based on reports of suspected intellectual property rights violations. This feature is based on user ship and machine learning. The more sellers use it, the better it will get at finding intellectual property violations.  
• Increased brand authority over product detail pages. This feature is for brands that have a broad distribution network of authorized resellers. As detail pages are created, misinformation or inaccurate information can be published about the brand. If sellers can prove they are the authorized trademark owner, they can request updates for any detail page 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 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 click 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 Enroll 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 the brand should be listed in 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 Tidbits on Getting Started with the New Brand Registry Program

• Brand Registry does not cost anything at the moment. It’s a service Amazon is providing to brands with no fees.
• ‘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 enrolled into the new Brand Registry program in the past six weeks (since May 15, 2017) they are 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 marketplaces where the trademark is registered. For example, a U.S. trademark can only be protected on Amazon.com and not any other marketplace. The U.S. trademark doesn’t have 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.

Final Word

Amazon’s updated Brand Registry tool is a giant leap forward in the company’s ongoing effort to protect brands and improve its customers’ buying experience. The new program does predictive automation of suspected intellectual property and trademark violations to notify brand owners. It also helps brand owners protect their trademarks and intellectual property even if they don’t sell on Amazon. We expect more updates to roll out leading up to Q4.