Amazon auto-rejecting infringment reports and not allowing any way to appeal!
I have had a problem with counterfeits in the past, so I got a trademark for my brand from the USPTO, as well as getting Amazon Brand Registered. I also got copyrights on the text on my products. I've been selling on Amazon about 10 years, been brand registered for about 5, now suddenly my infringement reports are just bouncing right back as rejected as soon as submitted.
I tried to open a case or escalate to have someone actually look at the listings and the only response I get is I have to make a new report. Well now I've made many reports, for both copyright and trademark infringement and I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall. If this fails, I'll have to report this to the U.S. Copyright Office or the National Intellectual Property Rights Office and see if they can take take action on Amazon for failing to enforce laws on their platform. Is this the result of A.I.? Clearly no human looked at the listings or the violations would have been very obvious.
Amazon auto-rejecting infringment reports and not allowing any way to appeal!
I have had a problem with counterfeits in the past, so I got a trademark for my brand from the USPTO, as well as getting Amazon Brand Registered. I also got copyrights on the text on my products. I've been selling on Amazon about 10 years, been brand registered for about 5, now suddenly my infringement reports are just bouncing right back as rejected as soon as submitted.
I tried to open a case or escalate to have someone actually look at the listings and the only response I get is I have to make a new report. Well now I've made many reports, for both copyright and trademark infringement and I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall. If this fails, I'll have to report this to the U.S. Copyright Office or the National Intellectual Property Rights Office and see if they can take take action on Amazon for failing to enforce laws on their platform. Is this the result of A.I.? Clearly no human looked at the listings or the violations would have been very obvious.
28 replies
Jim_Amazon
Hi there @Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
I just took a look into the ASINs you're reporting within Brand Registry! I do have a couple of questions here, as I'm not an expert in copyright law or anything, what does your copyright state that you own? Is it the name of that prayer or the prayer itself? Also, I can see you have products that are similar to the ones you're reporting. Is your goal here to report these products to have them removed?
Thank you!
Jim_Amazon
Hi, yes I do work M-F!
Within your Brand Registry account, I can see that all of the reports you've done in the past month have been under the "Copyright" category. With this being the same product, I would like for you to pick one ASIN and select "Trademark infringement" on this to report it that way. On top of that to ensure we're covering all aspects, if you could also head over to Report Abuse, select "Product detail page violates Amazon’s policies or is misleading customers" and then click "The product listing is a duplicate of another product listing", then I think we have a pretty airtight case covering both the IP side of things and the listing violation side of things.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
Before I'm even submitting the trademark report, it's claiming:
1 of 1 selected ASIN(s) do not contain the reported trademark and will be excluded from your report
You can review the excluded ASIN(s) in the ASIN summary. If you choose to include any of the excluded ASIN(s) in your report, please provide more information about where you identified the trademark. If you agree that all ASIN(s) should be excluded, click ‘Back’ below the ASIN summary to return to the search results. Trademark infringement requires the unauthorized use of a registered trademark on the product, packaging, or the product detail page. Learn more about our policy.
This is also why I'm in favor of the copyright report, because it clearly shows my copyrighted work on product pages for all products listed. I did submit at least 1 trademark report with all the other reports, but it gave a message like this for the products, so it possibly invalidated each item in the report, basically deleting it in the process. I'm going to try the second part of what you asked me to do, but the trademark report is a no-go before even submitting it.
Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
I can only report the Artisan Owl items, not the American Art Classics (of which I saw two listings today I hadn't seen or reported (so now a total of three listings)). I used to sell all these coins that AAC is selling (one is bundled with their money). Each is displaying my copyrighted prayer and that's the only way I can report them. Today I saw two products they have listed I wasn't aware of.
Can you look at their history and see they've already had each of these coins already removed? Relisting under new ASINs is also a violation of Amazon's policies, regardless of any reports I may be making.
I do need a way to report copyright infringement as it's the most relevant to all of my products and binds all of them. I have different copyrights for different products, such as the Breast Cancer and Education coins. I'm also making a new product I'll be selling which I'll be copyrighting as well. Copyright reports HAVE worked in the past, and there should be a way to enforce them on the platform. I'm not trying to be difficult, but especially with the military products I'm not selling anymore, anyone trying to sell them I can at least report in that way.
Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
Is it possible for you to email my listed business account's email? This forum is not letting me post the links to the products I mentioned, or put their ASINs in, and I'd like you to see the products I'm talking about.
Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
You know what my big fear is right now? That by showing it's a duplicate listing, it will combine their listings on my page as another seller and they'll be allowed to undersell me on my page and also benefit from my PPC.
In all honesty, we need a way to enforce my copyright. It just keeps coming down to that, and we need to figure out why this is suddenly such a difficult issue for Amazon. I have a legitimate claim, and it needs to be enforced.
Jim_Amazon
@Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
We're actually hosting an event right now with the Report a Violation team that can be found HERE.
I would like for you to bring up this scenario there so that the responsible team can give their thoughts on it!
Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
Thanks, Jim! I made a post, we'll see how it goes, I appreciate the information.
Jim_Amazon
As the event is only for today, if there are still follow ups that remain once it's closed, I'll still be here to continue working on this.
Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
I'm sure you saw my post on the forum, no official reply, should I still expect a response there?
Jim_Amazon
@Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
I did see it! Your particular case is taking a bit longer than normal to investigate but the team is actively working on it and I'm also tracking it personally.
I'll give them a nudge on this but right now I just need you to sit tight as they work on it!
Seller_j1jF9nxfXmdeu
Okay, that's all I can do. The most important thing to me is the copyright protection though, because it's the most obvious IP theft as it is on every counterfeit product, whether I'm still selling it or not. Plagiarizing someone else's text should be an obvious, huge infraction, and I'll be reporting those other American Art Classics coins as well. As I mentioned though, those were already removed by Amazon in a previous report, and relisting should be a huge account violation!
I would ask if you can remove any previous reports that were listed as "false", as they were not, and should not be held against my seller account. No reports I made were in err, or false. If they can't be removed, at least they should not be held against me if you know what I mean. When I asked for help, the only answer I got was to make more reports.
Thank you for bearing with me, this is just a frustrating situation for me. I already had a tough year, the one when I didn't yet have my trademark and copyrights, and it took almost a year to get them. This reminds me of that time.
Seller_tZJo8PvgHyd8X
Call a trademark and copyright lawyer instead.
