Amazon IP Infringement Claims: Patents, Trademarks and Insurance
An IP complaint can pull a bestselling listing overnight, and the policy Amazon asks you to carry was not built for it. Here is how these complaints work and where insurance reaches them.
Three kinds of IP complaint
Intellectual property complaints on Amazon fall into three groups. Patent complaints say your product copies a protected invention or design. Trademark complaints say your brand name, logo or listing confuses buyers with someone else’s mark, or that the goods are counterfeit. Copyright complaints usually target content: product photos, listing text, packaging art or an instruction manual lifted from another brand.
Rights owners file through Amazon’s infringement reporting tools, and Brand Registry gives enrolled brands faster ways to find and report listings. For the seller, the first sign is usually a removed listing and a new record under Received Intellectual Property Complaints in Account Health. Repeated complaints weigh on the account, so even a complaint you believe is wrong deserves a prompt, careful answer.
Sellers often call us about an IP notice expecting their product liability policy to handle it. Most of the time it does not, and knowing why saves weeks.
Responding on Amazon
Your options turn on the type of complaint and the facts behind it.
- Ask for a retraction. If the complaint was a mistake, or you reach an agreement, the rights owner can withdraw it. Amazon accepts a retraction only when the rights owner submits it directly, not as a forwarded copy.
- Appeal with evidence. For a counterfeit or trademark complaint about genuine goods, appeal from Account Health with supplier invoices that trace the units back to the brand or an authorized distributor.
- Send a counter-notice. For copyright, a counter-notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act asks Amazon to restore the content. You consent to a federal court’s jurisdiction, and the content returns unless the complainant files suit within the statutory window of ten to fourteen business days.
Utility patent complaints often come through the Amazon Patent Evaluation Express, known as APEX. The seller has three weeks to agree to the evaluation, and a seller who stays silent has the listing removed. Each side pays a $4,000 deposit to a neutral patent attorney, the winner gets it back, and the evaluator decides only whether the product likely infringes one claim of the patent. An evaluation takes about four months. Instead of joining, a seller can settle, take the listing down, or file a declaratory judgment suit in a US district court.
Behind all of this sits your contract. Section 6.1 of the Business Solutions Agreement asks you to defend and indemnify Amazon against third-party claims that your products or your listing materials infringe intellectual property rights, so a court case over your goods can come to you on Amazon’s behalf as well as your own.
Why product liability does not respond
The products part of a general liability policy is written for bodily injury and property damage caused by an occurrence. An infringement complaint alleges neither. No one was hurt and nothing was broken; the claim is that you used something that belongs to someone else. That is why the $1 million policy Amazon requires, which we explain on our Amazon seller insurance requirements page, almost never enters an IP dispute through its products coverage.
Some sellers learn this by sending an IP notice to their insurer and receiving a short letter explaining that the injury and damage grant does not apply. Knowing it in advance lets you budget for an IP attorney, or buy cover written for the risk, before a complaint lands.
What advertising injury can reach
General liability has a second part, Coverage B, for personal and advertising injury. It responds only to a list of named offenses, and two of them touch intellectual property: using another’s advertising idea in your advertisement, and infringing another’s copyright, trade dress or slogan in your advertisement. Policies define an advertisement as a notice published to the general public or specific market segments about your goods, to attract customers. A product listing, a sponsored ad or a brand storefront fits that description.
The limits sit in the exclusions. The standard intellectual property exclusion removes injury arising from infringement of copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights, then gives back infringement of copyright, trade dress or slogan in your advertisement. Patent claims and most trademark claims stay outside. Courts have also refused coverage where the complaint was about selling counterfeit goods rather than advertising them, as the Second Circuit did in a 2016 case over Fendi products. A separate exclusion removes harm from knowingly violating someone’s rights.
Where Coverage B does reach, its value is the defense. A copyright complaint over listing photos, or a trade dress complaint over packaging shown in your ads, can fall inside the general liability policy you already hold. Report every IP complaint to your agent, including the ones you plan to fight yourself, and let the insurer review the exact allegations.
Insurance written for IP disputes
Specialty insurers write intellectual property policies for businesses whose products could draw infringement claims. Defense policies pay legal costs, and in some forms damages, when someone accuses you of infringing a patent, trademark, copyright or trade secret. Enforcement or abatement policies fund your own suits against infringers, and some insurers share in what you recover. Newer forms add contractual indemnities and the cost of redesigning a product around a patent.
These policies are underwritten closely. Expect questions about your products, the searches you ran before launch, any opinion from patent counsel, the marks you own and every dispute so far. They are bought before a dispute begins, since no insurer takes on a complaint already in your inbox. For brands with a patented product or a strong mark, enforcement cover deserves a look, because the cost of chasing copycat listings falls on the brand owner.
Content claims over your own website and social channels are a third route. Media liability, offered inside some cyber policies, is written for copyright and similar claims over material you publish, and our guide to cyber insurance for online sellers explains how those policies are put together.
Lowering IP risk before you list
- Search before you source. Run a trademark search at the USPTO for your brand name and a patent search for the product and its design. For a product with a distinctive mechanism, a patent attorney’s freedom-to-operate opinion earns its fee.
- Register your own mark. A registered trademark opens Brand Registry, so you can report copycats instead of only answering complaints.
- Own your content. Shoot your own photos, write your own copy, and get a written assignment of rights from photographers and designers you hire.
- Put IP into the supply contract. Ask the factory to warrant that its designs do not infringe and to indemnify you if they do, since a factory can sell the same mold to more than one brand.
- Keep the paper trail. Resellers of genuine branded goods need invoices that lead back to the brand or an authorized distributor.
What to send us
If you have an open complaint, send the notice, the ASINs involved, any letters from the rights owner and your response so far. For a quote that adds IP or media cover, include your product list, the marks and patents you own, your brand’s sales and where you advertise. We work with hundreds of Amazon sellers and will show you which part of a policy, if any, reaches your situation.
The Amazon seller insurance hub has the rest of the series, including our guide to Amazon product liability claims for injury and damage cases.
A few useful answers
Common questions
Does my general liability policy cover a trademark complaint on Amazon?
Usually not. The standard intellectual property exclusion removes trademark claims, with a narrow give-back for trade dress or slogan infringement in your advertisement. Send the complaint to your agent anyway so the insurer can read the exact allegations.
Is an Amazon listing an advertisement under a liability policy?
It fits the usual definition: a notice published to the public about your goods to attract customers. That matters for copyright, trade dress and slogan claims tied to your listing content, which is where Coverage B reaches IP.
What does Amazon's patent evaluation cost?
Each side pays a $4,000 deposit to the neutral evaluator, refunded to the winner, plus its own attorney fees. Check the current figure in Amazon’s APEX documentation before you agree to take part.
Can I buy IP insurance after I receive a complaint?
Not for that complaint. IP defense policies are written for disputes that begin after the policy starts, so they are bought before trouble arrives.
Does a DMCA counter-notice end a copyright complaint?
It restores the content unless the complainant files suit within ten to fourteen business days. Filing one means accepting a federal court’s jurisdiction, so read the complaint carefully and take legal advice first.