DMCA Takedown
A legal process under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows copyright owners to request removal of infringing content from websites, platforms, and hosting providers.
Reference
Brand Protection Glossary
Clear definitions of the terms used in brand protection, IP enforcement, and counterfeit removal.
Brand Abuse
Unauthorized use of a brand's name, logo, likeness, or identity to deceive consumers — including impersonation, counterfeit sales, phishing, and misleading advertising.
Counterfeit
A fake product made to imitate a legitimate branded item, typically sold without authorization and often violating trademark rights.
Typosquatting
Registering domain names that are misspellings or lookalike variations of a brand name to capture mistyped traffic or impersonate the brand.
UDRP
Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy — an arbitration process for resolving domain name disputes when a domain infringes a trademark.
Trademark Infringement
Unauthorized use of a registered or common-law trademark in a way that is likely to cause consumer confusion about the source of goods or services.
Brand Registry
A platform-specific program (e.g., Amazon Brand Registry) that gives verified brand owners enhanced tools to find and report IP violations on that platform.
VeRO Program
eBay's Verified Rights Owner program — an IP enforcement system allowing rights holders to report and remove listings that infringe their intellectual property.
Takedown Notice
A formal request sent to a platform, host, or intermediary demanding removal of content that infringes intellectual property rights or violates platform policy.
Counter-Notice
A sworn response by someone whose content was removed via a DMCA notice, asserting the removal was mistaken and requesting restoration.
Designated DMCA Agent
The contact a service provider registers with the U.S. Copyright Office to receive copyright infringement notices on its behalf.
Safe Harbor (DMCA § 512)
Legal protection that shields platforms and hosts from liability for user-posted infringing content, provided they promptly remove it when properly notified.
Repeat Infringer Policy
A platform policy — required for DMCA safe harbor — under which accounts that accumulate multiple valid IP complaints are suspended or terminated.
Cease and Desist Letter
A formal demand, usually from a rights holder or their attorney, that a party stop an infringing activity or face legal action.
Gray Market Goods
Authentic products sold through channels the brand did not authorize — genuine goods, unauthorized distribution.
First-Sale Doctrine
The legal principle that once a genuine product is lawfully sold, the buyer may resell it without the IP owner's permission.
Listing Hijacking
When an unauthorized seller attaches to a brand's existing marketplace listing — typically on Amazon — to sell counterfeit or gray-market versions under the brand's own product page.
Amazon Buy Box
The 'Add to Cart' panel on an Amazon product page, awarded to one seller at a time among all sellers on that listing.
Amazon Project Zero
An Amazon program giving enrolled brands self-service power to remove counterfeit listings directly, plus automated proactive blocking based on the brand's data.
Amazon Transparency
An Amazon serialization program in which each authentic unit carries a unique code that Amazon scans to block counterfeit units before they reach customers.
IP Protection Portal (IPP)
A marketplace's dedicated system where rights holders verify their identity and register IP rights once, then file complaints against infringing listings under that verified account.
Test Buy
Purchasing a suspected counterfeit product to obtain physical evidence of inauthenticity for enforcement.
Evidence Package
The organized set of proof supporting an IP complaint: originals with dates, infringing URLs, screenshots, side-by-side comparisons, and purchase records.
Reverse Image Search
Searching by image rather than text to find where a photo or design appears across the web and marketplaces.
Brand Impersonation
Posing as a brand — through fake social accounts, lookalike domains, cloned stores, or spoofed ads — to deceive its customers.
Phishing
Fraud that impersonates a trusted brand to trick people into revealing credentials, payment details, or personal data.
Rogue Website
A standalone site built to sell counterfeits or impersonate a brand, outside any marketplace's enforcement system.
Cybersquatting
Registering a domain containing someone else's trademark in bad faith — to sell it back, divert traffic, or enable fraud.
Homoglyph Domain
A lookalike domain using visually identical or near-identical characters — like rn for m, or Cyrillic а for Latin a — to impersonate a brand's domain.
URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension)
A faster, cheaper cousin of UDRP that suspends — but does not transfer — domains in clear-cut trademark abuse cases.
WHOIS
The public record system for domain registrations, showing the registrar, registration dates, and (often redacted) registrant contacts.
Design Patent
A patent protecting the ornamental appearance of a product — its shape, surface decoration, or configuration — rather than how it works.
Trade Dress
Trademark protection for a product's overall look and feel — packaging, shape, color scheme — when it identifies the product's source to consumers.
Common-Law Trademark
Trademark rights arising from actual commercial use of a name or logo, without federal registration.
Copyright Registration
Formal registration of a creative work with a copyright office, adding legal advantages to the automatic copyright that exists from creation.
Ad Transparency Library
A public, searchable archive of ads running on a platform — such as Meta Ad Library and Google Ads Transparency Center.