Prepared by Cislo & Thomas LLP Attorney Travers Morgan, Esq.
Takeaway: It might be a good idea for businesses to register for federal trademarks and enroll in Amazon’s brand registry so they may participate in Amazon’s new anti-counterfeiting program.
This week, Amazon announced a program that allows trademark owners to takedown counterfeits. Amazon has named the program “Project Zero.” The program aims to eliminate counterfeit goods that are sold on amazon.com by scanning for suspected counterfeits and removing the listings automatically. The system that Amazon has implemented is claimed to detect 100 times more counterfeits than Amazon was able to detect before.
This project is currently only in a limited capacity as only companies that have been invited to participate in the program may do so. In other words, Amazon is testing out the project with a limited number of businesses to make sure the program is working effectively. However, there is a waitlist for companies that would like to participate in the program. To participate, the businesses must have obtained federally registered trademarks and also enroll in Amazon’s brand registry.
This may be another incentive for businesses to file for federal trademarks. This is largely because some business owners in the program have stated that participation has almost completely eliminated their counterfeiting problems.
