PS: Will trying to remove the listing hurt anything at this point? I don’t want to appear dishonest to them… but once it’s deleted, I can’t request to modify it, either…
If you remove the listing and the violation goes away with it, you may not be able to ever relist that item since the path for appeal is gone.
So …
I wouldn’t put Model Name is “Playmobil Naruto - Sasuke vs. Itachi”
Model Name should be “Sasuke vs. Itachi”
Then, is the Manufacturer actually “Playmobil?” The UPC you say belongs to “geobra Brandstätter Stiftung & Co. KG.”
Also … what does the packaging say for the manufacturer?
I suspect the issue mostly falls to the UPC at this point and that is what you need to show Amazon in your “in error” appeal. Prove that the UPC Holder owns Playmobil IF that UPC comes back to “geobra Brandstätter Stiftung & Co. KG.”
FYI …
- 025369 = UPC Prefix for Playmobil
- I find nothing coming up for “geobra Brandstätter Stiftung & Co. KG.” on the GS1 site
So I understand that they do own Playmobil, but I don’t see the UPC on the packaging being theirs instead of Playmobil’s … UNLESS maybe you are selling parallel imports(?).
These type cases take a lot of work and investigating to resolve, and even then sometimes Amazon balks at them.
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OK;
Package says
"geobra Brandstatter Stifung and Co KG Brandstatterstr 2-10
Zirndorf, Germany
copyright geobra Brandstaater
Made by Playmobil Malta Ltd
Also has copyright Mashashi Kishimoto Shippuden All Rights Reserved
UPC code is 4008789706669…screenshot is what I get when I look it up on GS1 database.
This is distributed by Playmobil USA in NJ.
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So I believe the issue is 
% the UPC not matching the Manufacturer.
I would fix your SellerSKU details and then appeal that you made mistakes in creating the page details.
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OK, sorry, this is the first time I’ve had this kind of unique situation so I don’t mean to be stupid lol.
The original flag was for using the trademark term “Naruto”
The reply I got from CS was that I needed to provide them with:
Therefore, we request you to update your product attributes by including the complete or correct brand name.
If you want to continue using the existing brand name, share a letter of authorization or licensing agreement proving that you are authorized by the rights owner to create and list products using [Naruto] trademarked term.
So my plan was to get them a licensing agreement showing that Playmobil has license to use Naruto, and that I’m authorized to sell Playmobil.
Alternately, what exactly should I be changing on the Product Detail page? Brand already shows as Playmobil…are you saying I should change it to geobra Brandstatter Stifung and Co?
Licensed products are a pain because Amazon’s kangaroo court IP enforcement system isn’t really designed to handle it. Having multiple rights owners involved on a product makes the situation exponentially more difficult to deal with.
I did see some posts on the seller forums a while ago regarding some IP issues regarding licensed apparel. If you could dig those up those might provide some additional insight into how to resolve this.
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My bad … I forgot this in between doing other stuff.
Which should help, but the UPC still won’t match with the listed Manufacturer, so that should be fixed
All of this has to be shown in your PoA as the root cause, in my opinion.
No. I do believe that the manufacturer should be though, if that’s where the UPC comes from.
OK. Will advise once I get documentation from Playmobil.
Interesting, this listing shows Playmobil as the Mfg, and the UPC code is same story (comes back to Geobra)…
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That listing is sold by Amazon though, so the rules don’t apply.
Playmobil just replied that they’re also working to get this fixed at their end because it was brought to their attention a couple weeks ago, they are uploading licensing information via their Amazon rep also:)
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Well that’s really great news, because this type of problem is very hard for us common folk to solve. At least playmobil is a big enough company to have special privileges at Amazon to resolve this.
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The question is… I need to wait till they fix it from their inside source…but then I still need to get the flag removed from my account, so at that time, what do I do? I think I 1) provide letter of authorization to sell Playmobil and 2) hopefully get a copy of their licensing agreement (not sure they’ll share it with me)…
It also has a title variation that could possibly hide the “Naruto” issue - Playmobil Naruto-Uzumaki - because it’s hyphenated.
I don’t think Amazon checks UPCs on items it lists very often.
ETA - I think Playmobil should fix the page .. and then what course you take goes from there. Hard to say for sure at this point.
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This is purely speculation as I’ve never dealt with this before, but presumably after playmobil resolves this through their special channel, if the flag doesn’t go away on it’s own, you should theoretically be able to use your playmobil LOA to appeal it as Amazon will have in their system that playmobil is an authorized licensee. Maybe the LOA needs to state that fact?
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Amazon rejected the documentation that Playmobil provided them directly (even though Amazon is still selling all the other items that are Playmobil/Naruto branded), so Playmobil is having Germany “fix the internal brand registry that should also release (my) item”…whatever that means? Any insight?
Is there more context (a lot more, hopefully) with that? I don’t understand what germany has to do with this since you’re presumably selling only on the US store.
I’m only selling in the USA.
It sounds like German Playmobil HQ takes care of more complex issues like this, that the US Division has limited manpower and resources. Germany handles all of the licensing, trademarks, etc and has the documentation needed.
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