There’s a new Amazon Dashboard in town, and it’s all about IP violations. If you thought Intellectual Property A collection of ideas, concepts, … More on Amazon is a minefield, read this and stop walking on eggshells.
Just when you thought Seller CentralAmazon Seller Central is a portal or a h… More was all out of surprises, there’s a new kind of Amazon dashboard in Account HealthAccount Health is an Amazon page which c… More. It’s called ‘‘Suspected Intellectual Property Violations’’. A tongue-twister, isn’t it? Let’s call it SIPV for short. And let’s see what it’s all about.
SIPV. The Basics
From the looks of things, there’s a lot riding on this Amazon dashboard. But the way sellers handle potential IP violations may need to change.
Amazon flags up listings for ‘misuse of trademarked terms’. Phrases like ‘‘X speaker compatible’’ usually trigger it.
It doesn’t matter if you use the brand in titles, descriptions, or even keywords. As long as you refer to a different brand, you’re breaking the rules.
Amazon deactivates these listings and sends an email with examples of fair use phrases (‘‘compatible with’’, ‘‘works with’’, or ‘‘for’’). It also tells you you’re free to correct the listings when you like for reinstatement within 24 hours.
So, as soon as you get that email, you start sifting through your listings to see where you mentioned that brand. And if you found it, you’d edit every affected listing right away.
Say, for instance, they flagged up a Disney toy you listed with the word ‘Hasbro’ in the title. If you have the invoices to back it up, you can replace ‘Hasbro’ with ‘Disney’, even though Disney is a gated Selling certain products and bran… More brand.
But recent reports show many email notifications go missing. Sometimes a trademark issue crops up in the dashboard with no prior notice, and it can be something you listed months ago.
So, because Amazon now feeds potential trademark issues straight into the SIPV dashboard and sometimes skips the notification part, you could be caught off-guard.
For private labelThis is what you call products manufactu… More items, it’s very easy for merchants to act on the problem. If they mistakenly used a brand name in one of their listings, they can easily do a search in their inventory with the same brand name to see where else they made the same mistake (knowing that they exclusively sell their own brand).
The rest of the sellers can carry out the same search, of course. But since the issue occurs at item level, it’s very likely that only one or a couple of listings have the same brand issue, whereas all the rest by the same brand would be correct.
Luckily, the listings featured there can no longer affect your accounts, because they’ve been closed. But here’s why you should keep an eye out anyway:
Suspected Vs. Received IP Violations
Suspected Intellectual Property Violations and Received Intellectual Property Complaints are two different things. As such, they feature in two separate tabs. Here’s why:
- The SIPV tab displays ASINs that Amazon suspects may be violating a brand’s intellectual property. These are inactive listings. They stay that way until you edit them.
- The RIPC tab shows listings reported to Amazon by rights owners. In most cases, Amazon will keep sending performance notificationsWarning messages sent by Amazon’s Sell… More about them, letting sellers know what to do.
So, to keep up with IP issues, you need to check both Amazon dashboards regularly. But that may not be enough. Based on our experience handling sellers’ cases, SIPV isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
IP Violations Dashboard: Dud or Doozy?
It’s only been around for a few weeks. Some sellers have access to it; some don’t. For those who do, it cropped up and then disappeared again several times. Sure; we can put that down to IT glitches. But those weren’t the only teething troubles.
We’ve dealt with quite a few strange situations since SIPV came along. We came across cases featured in this Amazon dashboard where:
- The listings were fair use to begin with (e.g. title said ‘compatible with’);
- The ‘trademarked term’ was precisely the brand the seller had in stock;
- The ASINs were never even listed by the seller and Amazon refused to retract them.
Reactions to the SIPV Dashboard
Amazon urged sellers to review the Trademark section on the Intellectual Property Policy help page. And to contact them if necessary. But the advice is generic and it doesn’t address the big issues.
Suppose you mentioned a brand in your listing. You’d like to change the name of the brand, but you find out it’s gated. Without invoices to back you up, you’d start wondering if it’s even worth going through the trouble to list on Amazon.
Let’s also assume Amazon’s flagged up a product. But you have countless others from the same brand in your warehouse. You probably won’t blacklist the whole brand, because this mistake is on an item-by-item basis. But do you bother to look for the mistake and reinstate your listings? Or do you give up on them altogether, since Amazon says they don’t jeopardize your business?
These are just some of the issues sellers might have with this Amazon dashboard. If you’ve come across a strange situation since the Suspected Intellectual Property Violations was launched, we’d love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts and don’t forget to follow our blog for more news and reports on IP violation rules.
Melanie takes an active interest in all things Amazon. She keeps an eye on the latest developments and keeps Amazon sellers up to speed
9 Responses
I know what IP means and the basic premise legally. How could I have an IP violation by using brand names in descriptions? Or, are you referring to using a brand name such as Disney if the product is NOT licensed by Disney?
Hello,
Thanks for your question. It was a good one! So, there is a bit of a discrepancy between general IP law and Amazon’s IP rules. Amazon takes things a little farther because they want to make sure that people know exactly what they’re getting. Because of this, you’ll want to avoid using terms like “Disney” in the description. Disney is a heavily gated brand, so they’ll do sweeps fairly often. You’ll also want to avoid using brand names in your keywords, as we’ve seen those trigger IP violations as well. If you would like to chat more about this please send us an email at services@sellerengine.com. There is a lot to learn, and I’d be happy to help you out.
Hello,
My account is deactivated saying “Potential Trademark Misuse” for 8 of the listings. could you please help me to solve the issue and to activate my account.
Thank You in advance!
Hello,
We may be able to help, yes.
We’d need to learn more about the situation.
Could you send us an email at services@sellerengine.com so we can discuss your options?
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Maria
Hello,
I am not sure if you are aware of this, given this article states ‘Luckily, the listings featured there can no longer affect your accounts, because they’ve been closed.’
I actually found your this article on your website because I was researching our account suspension.
Basically, we have had tonnes of SIPV in Europe for months now (private brand seller) and as you have stated in the article, we have been able to deal with them as and when we have time and the only downside is while the ASINs remain inactive, we lose sales on them.
Then in the last 30 days we received a small handful on amazon.com – we assumed as we had done in Europe we could get round to fixing them as and when time and resources were on our side.
BIG MISTAKE!!
We got suspended this week without any prior warning from Amazon (as is probably the norm in a corporation that believes in penalizing over education and warnings), not to mention the lack of consistency across different Amazon countries where one lands you with no business for the same violation that in another country is no problem.
So this post is just to make other sellers aware in case they don’t already know, don’t take any warning in your account health section for granted, because as I am sure you are already aware Amazon is ruthless.
Of course the irony is that we lost out from taking our time resolving these issue and now we’ve been shut down, there is no problem for SP to take their time reading or worrying about our appeal and distress.
Hey Ho – Just another day in the world of Amazon seller central.
Hello,
I’m very sorry to hear that this happened! One of the pitfalls of selling on Amazon is that sometimes the rules change with no prior notice. I’ll let the appropriate team member know so that we can update the post.
We’d also be happy to take a look at the suspension for you. We could provide a free assessment of the situation, and let you know how it should be handled. We could also write the appeal for you if you choose. Please feel free to reach out at services@sellerengine.com.
I am selling College items dealing with sports teams. I used the the term Auburn Tigers Rock Glass Set and it flagged the name Auburn Tigers which is the brand of the product. How can I sell this item without using that name? It was purchased from the manufacturer that purchased the license to use this item.
Hi,
I have 4 Suspected Intellectual Property Violations for the reason of Potential Intellectual Property Misuse (which is not specific). I have failed to work on it so now my account is deactivated.
Please advise me what to do in this situation.
I don’t know why my all the 4 listings are “Suspected” with Intellectual Property Violations.
Thank you!
Hello,
The account was deactivated due to the Potential Intellectual Property issues? You’ll have to resolve those in order to get the account reinstated, but I’d need more information in order to help you with that. I’d be happy to take a closer look though. Please reach out to us directly at services@sellerengine.com so I can follow up with some more questions.