Amazon Marketplace Problems and the Case For Registering a Seller Name as a Trademark with the USPTO

Verge reports on the problems sellers encounter from false claims and sabotage efforts of other sellers on Amazon’s marketplace.

The Verge article is titled Prime and Punishment: Dirty Dealing in the $175 Billion Amazon Marketplace. It reports that one seller registered a trademark for his watch brand but not the name of his Amazon seller account. Another person then applied and received a trademark registration from the USPTO over the Amazon seller’s account name, registered it with Amazon, and then used the registration to convince Amazon to kick the legitimate seller off and take over his name on Amazon. The article describes it this way:

Over the following days, Harris came to realize that someone had been targeting him for almost a year, preparing an intricate trap. While he had trademarked his watch and registered his brand, Dead End Survival, with Amazon, Harris hadn’t trademarked the name of his Amazon seller account, SharpSurvival. So the interloper did just that, submitting to the patent office as evidence that he owned the goods a photo taken from Harris’ Amazon listings, including one of Harris’ own hands lighting a fire using the clasp of his survival watch. The hijacker then took that trademark to Amazon and registered it, giving him the power to kick Harris off his own listings and commandeer his name.

…Then came the retaliation: tired of Harris’s futile attacks, the imposter booted Harris off his listings entirely, reporting him to Amazon for infringing on his own brand.

Therefore, registering with the USPTO, your amazon account name as a trademark, is a step to try prevent this type of terrible problem from occurring.