In a little-publicized but powerful campaign, Amazon has been teaming up with intellectual property owners to take counterfeiters to court—often footing the legal bill itself. The lawsuits have targeted a wide range of counterfeit goods, from unauthorized copies of the now-ubiquitous “Stanley” cup to unlicensed replicas of the WWE heavyweight champion belt. See Amazon.com v. Burns, No. 2:24-cv-01976 (W.D. Wash.); Amazon.com v. Grato International, No. 2:22-cv-01205 (W.D. Wash.). Amazon brings these actions because, according to Amazon, the sale of counterfeit goods on its platform “undermines the trust that customers, sellers, and manufacturers place in Amazon, and tarnishes Amazon’s brand and reputation.” See, e.g., Burns, Dkt. 1 at ¶ 21 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 2, 2024); Amazon.com v. Rivera, No. 2:18-cv-00350, Dkt. 1 at ¶ 16 (W.D. Wash. Mar. 8, 2018) (similar). But these lawsuits also can be a windfall for intellectual property rights owners, who are able to obtain relief from infringement in exchange for little more than agreeing to join Amazon’s complaint.
Since its start as a virtual bookseller in 1995, Amazon has developed a growing arsenal of tools to combat counterfeiters on its platform. Amazon claims to have invested over $1.2 billion and employed over 15,000 people in furtherance of this effort in 2023 alone. Some of these efforts are proactive and intended to stop infringing products before they are listed on the platform. Amazon claims to be 99% effective in this regard. And for the 1% of infringing products that sneak through Amazon’s initial screening, Amazon provides tools like Brand Registry, Transparency, and Project Zero that allow rights owners themselves to identify, report, and remove counterfeit products from the platform.