Amazon brand registry — booting a seller off our branded listing?

Hi all,

We have a product that we manufacture in the UK under our own brand name. The brand name is NOT currently trademarked, neither does the listing clearly state that the product is by our brand name. The listing currently states “by [our old amazon store name]” (when we first set up our listings on Amazon we used our store name as the brand name).

For a while we’ve had another seller advertising a cheap unbranded imported version of the product on our listing, using our EAN codes, and they’re undercutting us, so they’re obviously winning all the sales.

I’m not bemoaning the situation. We should have done a better job of protecting our listings in the first place. Anyway, I’m wondering if anyone has any experience of what I’m proposing to do next, which is essentially trademarking our brand name and registering with Amazon’s brand registry so we then make a formal request for the competing seller to be removed from our listing.

I know (having done it previously on other products that we sell) that we can get Amazon to change the brand name to our actual brand (rather than our old amazon store name as it is currently). I can send photos of the barcode with the brand name on the label and I believe seller support will then update the brand name. If support go as far as cross referencing the GS1 database they will also find that the brand name change checks out. I’ve done this within the last few months on another own brand product of ours, but come to think of it, it wasn’t on a listing with other sellers with competing offers so I’m not sure if this may complicates things.

In the mean time I was also planning on registering the trademark and then registering this with Amazon’s brand registry.

Assuming Amazon changes the listing brand name, and we have the registered trade mark and everything checks out — am I right in thinking that I can then go through some kind of trademark infringement claim via the brand registry with the aim of getting the competing seller booted off our listing?

I know nothing is that simple with Amazon, but is my understanding broadly correct? In the best case scenario trademark registration is probably going to take several months — and that’s assuming it’s successful — so I’m just wondering if it’s worth the hassle.