Amazon have launched a new anti-counterfeit programme aimed at protecting brands’ ideas by helping them obtain intellectual property (IP) rights and brand protection on the marketplace.
The marketplace are stepping up their battle against fraudulent products with Amazon IP Accelerator. The initiative is designed to help businesses from around the world obtain trademarks and IP rights in the US.
“We’re very excited Amazon has a list of legal firms that can advise us in our trademark needs. We have struggled finding counsel for trademark specific questions as we are a small company and work with limited budgets. Having the peace of mind that Amazon has vetted these firms and negotiated pricing for us lets us focus on what matters—building our brand.”
– Sonali Nayak, owner, Indigo Paisley.
The move will see Amazon leveraging legal guidance to connect brands with a pool of IP law firms to help sellers secure a trademark. Amazon promise this service to offer “competitive rates.”
The participating IP laws already underwent a vetting process by Amazon, judging their expertise, customer service and trademark registration as criteria for trusted assistance. The law firms are designated to ease the filling process of trademark applications. That is, they boast wide-ranging services including copyright registrations, design patterns and IP protection strategies, making it easy for traders to get personalised solutions for their brands.
Using IP Accelerator is designed to take the guesswork out of the trademark filing process. These law firms know the ins-and-outs of IP and can save businesses both money and time—a proper, well-drafted trademark application can reduce the time required to secure a trademark registration. Amazon will not charge businesses to use IP Accelerator—they only pay their law firm for the work performed at the pre-negotiated rates.
Amazon promise to provide brands with future accelerated access to brand protection, exclusively for traders who will try their IP Accelerator service and work the participating law firms. It will see the marketplace protecting brands for “months, or even years” before the trademark registration officially issues. Brands will benefit from automated brand protections, which proactively block fraudulent listings from Amazon’s stores, increased authority over product data on the marketplace, and access to their Report a Violation tool, a tool to search for and report bad listings.
One Response
Counterfeits have the ability to destroy Amazon,s market place in the future, because Amazon is all about trust and loyalty. If counterfeits become a massive problem in the future then Amazon will lose customers and prime members as shoppers will show elsewhere ie with the bricks and mortars such as Wal-Mart and target etc.
Counterfeits have already destroyed Ebays market share of online shopping and that can happen to Amazon.
Amazon needs to apply a lot of resources to eradicate counterfeits and fraud on its marketplace.