Hey everyone! I searched and couldn’t find anything related to this issue so here it goes…
Example:
My brand is named “IBM” and I have brand registry already approved and being used for the name “IBM”
I would like to add additional trademarks to brand registry so I can force Amazon to remove the trademark from competitor product titles and descriptions. However when I add the trademarks, Amazon says because the trademark owner in USPTO says “International Business Machines, Inc” and not “IBM” that they cannot approve adding it. Even if I have the trademark “IBM” already added to brand registry that says owned by “International Business Machines, Inc”.
They just keep telling me I need to create a whole new brand enrollment. These are simple wordmark trademarks and we have 5 of them. Do I really need to do separate brand enrollment for 5 different words or am I going about this all wrong?
I get that, but they are trying to make me enter them as brands. I don’t have websites, logos, packaging for these trademarks. They are simply a name in our products. Example: Apple iMac
A trademark owner can connect multiple trademarks together on Amazon in Brand Registry.
Nike can add NIKE and AIR JORDAN to Brand Registry in the same category since they are the same owner. This way someone cannot create a brand called AIR JORDAN on amazon. It would be under NIKE. AIR JORDAN is enforced under the NIKE brand.
I am a little confused. You should be able to connect your trademarks. It sounds like another company already registered the brand/name with BR 2.0 in your category which may be blocking you directly from adding your trademark in the same category.
No.. that isn’t the issue. Please read my first post. Amazon is refusing to add the trademarks because the “owner” name isn’t the exact same although I have explained to them it is a DBA. This is why I used the example of IBM
Maybe we are confunfused but you are trying to enter non-trademarked names into brand registry because they are similar? That’s how I read it but that’s not how brand registry works. Every brand a seller registers must be owned by them (or they have been authorized to register them), and every variant or name must have a live or pending USPTO TM. Product names can have IP / TM’s too but the former applies (Must be real and exist in the USPTO registry), and ideally owned by the seller for ease of execution.
If I read this situation wrong, apologies but your posts aren’t very clear in this thread for some reason.
Brand entered in Amazon is “IBM” but the company name that owns the trademarks is “ International Business Machines, Inc”. IBM is even trademarked in USPTO as owned by “ International Business Machines, Inc”.
The issue is that Amazon won’t accept our actual “corporate” business name that shows owns the trademarks…. yet the DBA we use for our Amazon Brand name shows the same owner name
Because they are not exactly the same, they are just saying to create them as new brands… which they are not new brands lol. Just trademarked words
Got it… But you have registered other brands with the same DBA / addresses? TBH, that really shouldn’t be a problem. A seller can register another brands brand if they wanted to and had access to the confirmation code that gets sent to the lawyer or person that filed for the mark.
Have you tried opening a case with brand registry support? If you have other registered brands, you should have access to that (separate case log). It’s the same idiots on the other end but worth a shot.
Not sure if you opened a regular case or a BR case…
And yes you do. We have 3 brand registries for the same brand (different pieces of IP on the labels for the brand). - Includes the name of the product which is unique and we got a TM for.
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Got it… But you have registered other brands with the same DBA / addresses? TBH, that really shouldn’t be a problem. A seller can register another brands brand if they wanted to and had access to the confirmation code that gets sent to the lawyer or person that filed for the mark.[/quote]
I don’t know if I’m being misunderstood or are we using the wrong terms here? These are not brand names that I am trying to add to brand registry. They are trademarked words that I’m trying to add to brand registry. I do not want to add these trademarked words as brands because we do not have logos, websites or packaging with said logos.
No we do not have any other brand names registered. Only one brand name is registered. Going back to my IBM example… “IBM” is the trademarked name we have in brand registry.
Yes, I tried arguing with brand registry support. They keep saying the trademark must be the same owner name regardless of DBA or not (which is stupid.)
USPTO trademark “IBM” shows owned by "International Business Machines, Inc” on USPTO
USPTO trademark “Computer-4-Kids” shows owned by “International Business Machines, Inc” on USPTO
Amazon’s response when I try to add “Computer-4-Kids” as a trademark in brand registry under the brand “IBM”:
Greetings from Amazon,
This is Marta from Leadership Team.
I understand your concern regarding the additional trademark registration for IBM.
After a thorough leadership review of your case, we must maintain our previous decision. We cannot add trademark #123456789 to your IBM brand registration because the trademark name “Computer-4-Kids” does not match your brand name “IBM”.
While we acknowledge that International Business Machines, Inc is the trademark owner and IBM is a DBA (Doing Business As) name, our brand registry policy specifically requires the trademark name itself to exactly match the brand name for additional trademark requests.
So you are trying to enforce a TM that’s being used by competitors for things that are not the brand? Is that the reason? You or the brand would have to violate the seller for doing this based on the active TM. Just like the NIKE “Just Do It” example above. NIKE can violate for someone that uses it but it won’t be a registered brand on Amazon.
Violating IP on Amazon isn’t just confined / limited to what’s in the BR database.
I am not trying to register a trademark as a brand.
I am trying to register a trademark as a trademark.
Yes… they are using our trademark for their own brand. But before I can report them.. I need to add these trademarks into brand registry (NOT AS A BRAND)
Yea, but you can’t do that. LOL. Not how it works as a couple of us have been trying to explain. The company that owns the brand needs to get their lawyers working for their pay. That’s the reality of your situation. Like it or not. Sorry
Slogans are not brands. Brand Registry is for brands. We circumvented that once for a different reason and got a product name registered by manipulating things with our SAS managers guidance and help. Otherwise it’s brand names only that go into BR. All other IP has to be enforced externally with cease and desist letters and other legal action.
Done that too, when someone stole our IP that wasn’t a brand. Cost us $7K but worked…
