Hello Sellers,

Lately, I have seen in uptick in questions around why complaints submitted through the Report a Violation tool. in Brand Registry are not being accepted. So, I would like to take a few moments to point out the top 3 reasons for rejection that i have seen and hopefully you can avoid these common pitfalls when reporting your own Intellectual Property complaint.

Exclusive Distribution: Amazon respects a manufacturer's right to enter into exclusive distribution agreements for its products. However, violations of such agreements do not constitute intellectual property rights infringement. As the enforcement of these agreements is a matter between the manufacturer and the retailers, it would not be appropriate for Amazon to assist in enforcement activities.

• What does that mean? It means that when you state you do not distribute to anyone, while that may be true, Amazon specifically still can’t not enforce on this.

• What can you do? Complete a test buy, determine the type of specific infringement and report accordingly. Sometimes, this does mean to “Report Abuse,” from the Account Health Dashboard instead of the Report a Violation tool.

Location: If you are reporting infringement of a registered trademark or patent, your registered trademark or patent must be registered in the country where you are reporting the infringement. Amazon does not take action on intellectual property notices concerning registered trademarks, designs, or patents from countries other than the country for which takedown is requested.

• What does that mean? You cannot use the Report a Violation tool to report infringement of an offer that is in a country where you do not have a Trademark, Patent or Copyright.

• What can you do? Complete a test buy, determine the type of specific infringement and report accordingly. Sometimes, this does mean to “Report Abuse,” from the Account Health Dashboard instead of the Report a Violation tool.

• What else can you do? If you DO have a TM in that country, make sure to Add additional trademarks to your brand and then complete a submission via the Report a Violation tool accordingly. You do not have to additional copyrights or patents of those countries to the Brand, you can move forward with reporting the violation, just make sure you are providing the Patent or Copyright numbers for that country in your submission.

More than one type of IP violation per notice: In order to ensure quality and quick resolution of your notices, we will only process the specific complaint type you have chosen in the Report Infringement form or RAV (such as, patent, trademark, or copyright).

• What does that mean? Selecting trademark infringement and discussing copyright issues in the submission. The notice will be processed as a trademark complaint only.

• What you can do? If you want to report infringement of a trademark and a copyright, file separate notices.

• What I recommend you DO NOT do. Select a TM violation on the product or its packaging and provide detail about how it is counterfeit. These are 2 different workflows when reporting Intellectual Property violations.

You can find all of the above and MORE on the Intellectual Property for Rights Owners help page. This resource is really robust, but is packed with so much helpfulness... it just takes a bit of time to sift through!

As always, you can connect with us anytime with questions and feedback.

Best, Dougal