What is online brand protection, and how do marketplace brands do it?

What does online brand protection cover?

For a marketplace brand, online brand protection means dealing with five problems:

• Counterfeits: fake units sold on your listing or on copycat listings.
• Listing hijacks and content changes: other sellers editing your title, images or variations.
• Trademark misuse: your brand name in someone else's listing or ads.
• Copyright theft: your photos, video or A+ content copied.
• Unauthorized sellers. Practitioner note: a reseller of genuine product is usually a distribution problem, not an IP violation. Walmart says outright that it will not enforce exclusive distribution agreements through its Brand Portal.

Which Amazon brand protection programs exist, and what do they cost?

How does Amazon Brand Registry work?

Enrollment is at brandregistry.amazon.com. Amazon asks for a logo with your brand name permanently affixed to products or packaging, a pending or registered word or design mark (with words, letters or numbers) from a government trademark office in a country with an Amazon store, the registration or application number, and your product categories. You must be the trademark owner; an agent can be added as a user after the owner enrolls.

One global account covers every country. You enroll with one country's trademark, then add others after approval. No trademark yet: IP Accelerator connects you with Amazon-vetted law firms and gets you into Brand Registry as soon as the application is pending. Amazon says more than 33,000 brands have obtained trademark protection through that network.

Are Project Zero and Transparency worth it?

Project Zero is the strongest tool on Amazon because it removes the wait: an eligible brand removes a counterfeit listing itself, and every removal teaches Amazon's automated protections. The catch is the bar to stay in. Amazon requires at least 99% accuracy on removals, and each removal sends a notice of complaint to every seller on that listing. It is available in 22 countries.

Transparency works at the unit level: Amazon says serialized products carry codes so counterfeits cannot be listed or sold. Amazon says more than 90,000 brands have enrolled and more than 2.7 billion units have been verified (Amazon internal data, May 2026). At $0.05 a code for most brands, it is worth it for products that get counterfeited; it is not needed for every SKU.

How do you report infringement on Amazon?

1. Collect proof. Screenshots of the listing, the ASIN, the seller name, your trademark or copyright registration, and a test buy for suspected counterfeits.
2. Open Report a Violation in Brand Registry. Since 31 July 2026 it is one guided flow for IP infringement, store policy and compliance concerns, with structured fields instead of free text.
3. Pick the right claim type. Trademark, copyright, patent or counterfeit. A wrong claim type gets rejected and hurts your acceptance rate, which Project Zero eligibility depends on.
4. Track it in Submission History. Amazon shows report status in real time there.
5. Escalate patents and repeat offenders. Use patent evaluation for utility patent disputes. Amazon's Counterfeit Crimes Unit pursues counterfeiters through litigation and referrals to law enforcement.

What does Amazon do on its own, and what is left to the brand?

Amazon's 2025 Trustworthy Shopping Experience Report (April 2026) says Amazon seized and disposed of more than 15 million counterfeit products worldwide in 2025, blocked more than 99.9% of suspected infringing listings before a brand owner had to report them, and that its Counterfeit Crimes Unit has pursued more than 32,000 bad actors in 14 countries since 2020. These are Amazon's own figures.

Off Amazon, each marketplace has its own program. Walmart's Brand Portal takes copyright, trademark, patent and counterfeit claims but only accepts trademarks fully registered with the USPTO, and not applications from third-party sellers or brand protection agencies. eBay's Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program is its route for rights owners, and VeRO profiles, where you explain your IP to sellers, cost nothing.

Amazon Brand Protection setup is a one-off Shaazford project at $750: Brand Registry enrollment checks, user roles, Transparency and Project Zero readiness, and a reporting routine your team can run.