Brand Protection On E-commerce Platforms

Published date02 November 2021
Subject MatterIntellectual Property, Technology, Trademark, Fin Tech
Law FirmHGF Ltd
AuthorClaire Jones

HGF recently presented on this topic at the Luxury Law Summit conference in London, which emphasised the need for brands to take a robust strategy to trade mark protection online. Online protection can feel particularly time consuming; monitoring and enforcing not only your own sales, but sales by third parties and counterfeiters. We've summarised below some of the brand protection measures that the main platforms are taking and how these can feed into broader online protection strategies.

Amazon

Brand Registry

Amazon's Brand Registry identifies 'official' brand owners to Amazon and can help brand owners protect their intellectual property and product content on the Amazon platform. Whilst anyone can report IP violations to Amazon directly, the Brand Registry provides a dedicated team focused on violations, potential infringements and technical issues, as well as access to a range of marketing and authenticity programs.

The initial enrolment into the system has to be submitted by the brand owner directly, but once registered, access and control can be assigned as the brand owner deems relevant.

There are a number of requirements for entry, the most notable is registered trade mark protection in the territory where you are seeking enrolment. Pending applications are not accepted, nor are purely graphical marks. In addition, each territory has different requirements and each territory has its own Brand Registry - so separate accounts are required - for example in the USA, UK, Germany, Italy and Spain.

As part of the verification process, Amazon send a code to the attorney of record listed on your trade mark registration and this code is required in order to complete the enrolment process.

Project Zero

This is Amazon's latest and most ambitious anti-counterfeiting measure to date with the aim of driving counterfeits on the platform to zero. The project started as invite only in the USA, but has now expanded to the UK and a number of other EU territories. The requirements for entry into the project are (a) enrolment in the Brand Registry and (b) been active in reporting infringements on the platform within the last six months, with an acceptance rate of at least 90%.

There are three main elements to the project:

  • Automated protections and technology removing counterfeits
    Based on key brand information data points provided by the brand owner, AI proactively and continuously scans the stores for suspicious listings, many of which can be stopped before consumers...

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