For brands selling on Amazon, Brand Registry has become an essential line of defense. Enrollment provides access to enhanced IP enforcement tools, the ability to report violations directly, and Amazon’s proactive monitoring technology. In 2025, Amazon reported that its automated controls blocked more than 99 percent of suspected infringing listings proactively, before a brand owner ever filed a report, which is a remarkable figure that reflects the platform’s substantial investment in IP protection.
But there is a shadow side to that system that brand owners and the legitimate sellers they compete with need to understand. Because Brand Registry access is gated by a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office registration, bad actors have developed a scheme of fraudulently obtaining trademark registrations for marks that are already in use by others on Amazon’s platform, then weaponizing Brand Registry tools to have legitimate sellers removed. Amazon itself has filed multiple federal lawsuits against participants in this scheme, and the courts are paying attention.
The Counterfeit Problem, By the Numbers
Amazon’s 2025 Trustworthy Shopping Experience Report, released in April 2026, offers a useful baseline. In 2025, Amazon identified, seized and disposed of more than 15 million counterfeit products worldwide. Since its Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU) launched in 2020, Amazon has pursued more than 32,000 bad actors through civil litigation and criminal referrals to law enforcement across 14 countries. The platform has formed joint enforcement relationships with brands ranging from Philips to L’Oréal to Pandora, filing coordinated lawsuits and sharing intelligence with customs authorities to disrupt counterfeit supply chains before products reach consumers.
For brand owners, these numbers are a mix of reassurance and concern. The scale of the problem is genuinely enormous. The effectiveness of Amazon’s proactive controls is real. But the continuing volume of infringement, and the sophistication of the schemes used to perpetrate it, means that brand protection on Amazon requires active attention, not passive reliance on Amazon’s systems.
The Trademark Registration Abuse Problem
The more insidious threat for legitimate brands comes not from counterfeiters selling knockoffs, but from a different kind of bad actor: one who uses the formal trademark system itself as a weapon. As documented in a 2025 law review article in the California Law Review, Amazon’s Brand Registry has had a significant effect on the volume of USPTO trademark filings because registry access requires federal registration. That spike in applications has attracted opportunists who file trademark applications for marks already in use by legitimate sellers, obtain registrations (sometimes fraudulently), use those registrations to gain Brand Registry access, and then flood Amazon’s reporting system with fraudulent infringement claims against the very brands whose marks they stole.
In multiple lawsuits filed in the Western District of Washington, Amazon’s CCU has sued individuals and entities that obtained invalid or fraudulent trademark registrations and used them to file thousands of abusive takedown requests against legitimate Amazon sellers. In one documented scheme, a single entity submitted thousands of allegedly abusive infringement claims over the course of just a few months.
Amazon has also pursued the professionals who enable these schemes. One set of defendants included an attorney previously sanctioned by the USPTO for violations of its conduct rules and a consulting company that charged fees for filing invalid trademark applications and securing Brand Registry access for its clients. These enforcement actions signal that Amazon is not merely targeting the operators of fraudulent schemes but also the advisors and facilitators who make them possible.
What Brand Owners Should Do
The dual nature of the threat, counterfeits on one hand, fraudulent Brand Registry abuse on the other, requires a two-track approach to brand protection.
On the counterfeit side, enrollment in Brand Registry and its associated tools remains foundational. Brands should take advantage of Amazon’s Project Zero program, which permits enrolled brands to directly remove counterfeit listings without waiting for Amazon’s review process. Test purchases from suspected counterfeit listings provide valuable evidence, and in coordination with Amazon’s CCU, can support criminal referrals to law enforcement when the scale of counterfeiting warrants it.
On the trademark abuse side, the priority is maintaining a clean and well-documented trademark portfolio that leaves no gaps for opportunists to exploit. Brands that have established strong common-law rights but have not yet obtained federal registrations are at particular risk of having those marks captured by bad actors who then weaponize the formal system. Registering marks promptly, monitoring USPTO filings for conflicting applications, and maintaining accurate ownership information in Brand Registry are all essential protective steps.
Sellers who receive infringement complaints they believe to be fraudulent or abusive should document everything and seek counsel promptly. Amazon’s internal appeals process is the first avenue, but in cases of systematic abuse, the proper response may include reporting the matter directly to Amazon’s CCU and, in appropriate cases, pursuing claims under federal law for tortious interference or abuse of process.
The Broader Takeaway
Amazon’s ongoing counterfeit enforcement, and its aggressive legal posture toward Brand Registry abuse, reflect a marketplace that is both more protective of brands and more complex to navigate than it was just a few years ago. Brand owners who invest in their trademark portfolios, stay current on registration maintenance, and remain actively engaged in platform-level enforcement will be better positioned to protect their sales and their reputation in an environment where the stakes keep rising.
Contact
For questions about brand protection on Amazon, trademark registration strategy or responding to counterfeit or fraudulent infringement claims, please contact KJK eCommerce attorney Kyle Stroup (KDS@kjk.com).