Distribution agreements are not intellectual property issues. Distribution does not amount to intellectual property on Amazon.
If it’s distribution that you’re trying to control, there are proper ways to go about this, but the intellectual property complaint system is not one of them.
Lacking permission to sell is NOT an intellectual property rights violation.
Brands should not use the intellectual property complaint system when they are upset about distribution agreements. Take a big brand like Apple, they are Brand Gated on Amazon. If you want to sell their products, you need to get their approval first. You need to contact them, show them where you are sourcing products from, and only upon their approval can you sell that product.
If a brand is not Brand Gated, they cannot claim that authorization is an excuse for the intellectual property complaint filed.
Since they can’t argue distribution or authorization because Amazon does not acknowledge those, brands will assert a counterfeit or trademark complaint even though the product is genuine. Authorization or the lack of authorization to sell is not a trademark or copyright complaint.
With the exception of Brand Gating, authorization and distribution agreements are not enforced on the Amazon platform.
A trademark violation would be taking the Nike logo and sticking it on your own shirt. An example of a copyright violation would be taking a brand’s images directly from the images they produced, making your own listing on the Amazon marketplace, and using the images that are copyright protected by these brands without their authorization. Another example is when you cut and paste someone else’s verbiage.
If you’re not copying pictures or verbiage, then there is no copyright complaint. That’s the difference: permission to sell vs intellectual property. Authorization to sell and intellectual property are two entirely different things. That is the difference between a baseless complaint and a real intellectual property complaint.
If you want to learn more about baseless intellectual property complaints, call or email us. We are here for sellers.
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