Amazon has expanded its Project Zero counterfeit combatting technology to seven more countries – Australia, Brazil, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey and the UAE – making it available in 17 countries where Amazon has a store.
 
Project Zero combines machine learning with the knowledge that brands have of their own intellectual property to drive counterfeits to zero.
 
Launched in 2019, Project Zero aims to ensure that customers always receive authentic goods when shopping on Amazon. Over 10,000 brands – from large, global brands to emerging entrepreneurs including Arduino, BMW, ChessCentral, LifeProof, OtterBox, Salvatore Ferragamo and Veet – have enrolled in Project Zero.
 
“Amazon is committed to protecting our customers and the brands we collaborate with worldwide,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon vice president. “Project Zero has been a leap forward in protecting brands, especially for those that use all three of its components.”
 
These three components are:

• Automated protections proactively and continuously scan more than five billion attempted daily product listing updates globally to look for suspicious listings. These automated protections are powered by machine learning and are continuously fed new information to improve automatically preventing and blocking potential counterfeit listings.
• A self-service tool empowers brands and provides them with the ability to remove listings directly from the store. These removals also feed into automated protections to catch potential counterfeit listings proactively in the future.
• Product serialisation is enabled by a unique code that brands apply within their manufacturing or packaging process, and it allows Amazon to scan and confirm individually the authenticity of every purchase of a brand’s enrolled products from Amazon’s stores.

A statement from German car maker BMW said: “Project Zero has been a very easy and effective tool at protecting BMW on Amazon. We are very appreciative of the tools Amazon has built to enable us to protect our brand.”

And Adrienne McNicholas, CEO of Food Huggers, added: “We are excited to see that Project Zero is expanding into the new marketplaces. The programme has already had a very positive impact on our enforcement efforts and we are glad to see Amazon’s continued commitment to protecting our brand across the world.”

Brands that are enrolled in Project Zero and already have a trademark enrolled in one of the newly launched countries will automatically be able to use Project Zero in these additional stores. New brands can enrol in Project Zero.

Recently, Amazon launched the Amazon Counterfeit Crime Unit (ACCU), a global team that will investigate and bring legal action against bad actors, protecting customers, selling partners and brands.

The Amazon IP Accelerator helps businesses more quickly obtain intellectual property (IP) rights and brand protection in Amazon’s stores. The programme was designed for small and medium businesses and is available to entrepreneurs worldwide that are looking to secure intellectual property in the USA. IP Accelerator connects entrepreneurs with US law firms with expertise in trademark applications.

Amazon Brand Registry is a free service that gives brand owners access to a set of tools that help them deliver an accurate and trusted customer experience on Amazon while protecting a brand’s IP.