The listing came down and nothing has been decided. Those two facts sit together more often than sellers expect.
For cases we accept: the asserted patent and its official record, a structured design comparison, and the route the evidence supports with counsel where it controls.
A real person reads your case and replies within about an hour.
ASA Compliance Group operates Amazon Sellers Appeal. On design-patent files we assemble the record and run the Seller Central route. We are not patent counsel and do not give legal opinions.
Include the complaint identifier, the patent asserted, and photographs of your product from every angle. Four short steps. Or Shamosh reads every intake.
Or Shamosh · Founder and lead strategist
5,500+ enforcement cases since 2016. Every intake is personally assessed before acceptance.
Send what you have, including prior DIY or agency appeals. We say what is viable in writing before you commit.
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* Across ASA’s accepted and fully managed enforcement cases (all notice types we take on), not design patent matters alone. Details under Proof.
A design patent protects the ornamental appearance of an article rather than how it works. So the allegation is about how the product looks, and arguments about function, quality or materials do not reach it. The notice normally identifies a complaint identifier, the asserted patent, the rights owner or its agent, and the affected listing.
Two products looking broadly similar is not the test, and neither is their being non-identical. The governing test is the ordinary-observer test: whether an ordinary observer, familiar with the prior art, would be deceived into believing the accused product is the same as the claimed design. The comparison is between the claimed design as shown in the patent drawings and the accused product, and it is more structured than an impression.
A design patent is not a trademark, and the two carry different tests and different evidence. Where the complaint is about a brand name or logo rather than the shape of the article, it is trademark infringement.
Three routes, and the evidence decides which:
The rights owner withdraws the complaint. Every complaint identifier needs its own withdrawal.
The design differs, the patent does not apply, the product is licensed, or the complaint has a documented defect.
The seller accepts the listing should not continue. An honest outcome, and sometimes the right one.
Amazon's patent policy for sellers covers the process side. Everything about claim scope, validity, ownership, expiry and infringement is legal analysis: this page organises the facts, and qualified patent counsel draws the conclusions.
The design is rarely copied deliberately. Most of these begin somewhere in the supply chain or in a genuine similarity.
The patent holder or its agent files against the listing. Sometimes across several listings at once under one asserted patent. The unit of work is the complaint identifier rather than the ASIN, because one complaint can name several listings, and one position has to hold across all of them.
Two products in a category converge on a similar shape because the function constrains it. Genuine similarity, no copying, and still capable of supporting a complaint depending on what the drawings actually claim.
This is where the structured comparison earns its place. An impression that they look different is not evidence. Working through the drawings feature by feature organises the factual analysis, and it is not the governing test: infringement is decided on the overall impression to the ordinary observer, so a list of individual differences does not settle it.
The factory offers the design to everyone, and several sellers list it. Buying it in good faith does not resolve whether the design falls within someone's claim, and supplier assurances are worth what the supplier's own position is worth.
A licence or authorization letter exists and Amazon rejects it. Usually the failure is in authority and authentication rather than in the appeal's wording: the named owner, the assignment chain, the dates, the signatories and the document presentation do not reconcile.
Trace the chain to the recorded owner in the official register. Where an intermediary granted it, their own right to do so has to be shown too.
Similar designs available before the patent's effective filing or priority date - not its issue date, which is usually later and is the wrong line to measure from. Prior art also frames the infringement comparison itself, because the ordinary observer is presumed familiar with it. It is still a different argument from saying the product does not infringe, and the two should be kept apart rather than blended.
Prior art and non-infringement answer different questions and carry different risks. Mixing them casually weakens both, and either belongs with counsel before it is asserted.
Reviewers are looking for an organised record. Most rejected responses offer an assertion about appearance.
The products differ, argued without a consistent-angle comparison against the patent drawings themselves.
Invoices, trademark records or supplier assurances sent against a question about ornamental design. They do not reach it.
Validity, ownership, expiry or priority treated as settled without checking the official record and the jurisdiction.
A message sent before the product, patent and objective are assessed, which can create admissions or invite a demand.
A plan of action that implicitly admits infringement when the seller's position is that the complaint is wrong.
A comparison that omits unfavourable views. Reviewers notice the missing angle, and it costs more credibility than the view would have.
Verify the right, build the comparison, then let counsel say what it means. The order protects the seller.
Record the notice, the complaint identifier, the listing, the asserted patent number, the rights owner's identity, the marketplace and the complaint status. Where several listings were removed under one patent, record which complaint identifier each removal cites. One complaint can cover several ASINs and one patent can be asserted in several complaints, so the identifiers and the listings do not map one to one, and the grouping decides what has to be answered separately.
Then pull the official patent record: the drawings, the status, the ownership and assignments, the filing and issue information, and the jurisdiction. Every one of those is checkable and none of them should be assumed from the complaint. If the complaint also alleges the goods are not genuine, that is a separate allegation with its own evidence: see counterfeit claims.
This is the core of the file and it is a structured document rather than a pair of photographs:
Omitting an angle is worse than including one that does not help. A comparison that is visibly selective invites the reader to discount all of it, and the missing view is usually the one that gets requested.
Assembling the notice, the product, the patent record and the comparison is operational work and it should start immediately, because evidence degrades. Turning those into a conclusion is not. Claim scope, infringement, validity, ownership, expiry, jurisdiction, licensing and litigation risk all need qualified patent counsel.
Do not wait for counsel before preserving evidence, and do not publish a conclusion before counsel has reviewed it. Those two together are the whole rule, and they are not in tension.
Where a commercial resolution is available, document it for every complaint identifier separately. A retraction has to be filed through Amazon's channel by the rights owner: an agreement to retract, a supplier's assurance or a lawyer's letter saying it will happen is not the completed event.
A withdrawn complaint removes that complaint. It does not resolve unrelated listings, other complaints, or account-level issues that may remain open alongside it, and a rights owner objecting to the market the goods were made for is a parallel import matter rather than a design one.
Closing or withdrawing the offer stops further sales, and that is sometimes the right commercial decision while the matter is open. It does not by itself clear an existing complaint or the Account Health violation attached to it. Complaint resolution, retraction and listing closure are three separate events, and only the first two change what is recorded against the account.
If you have already contacted the complainant, include the correspondence. It affects what is still available and it cannot be unsent.
Scoped historical outcomes on cases we accepted and fully managed. One seller voice below; deeper galleries live on account reinstatement.
Population: historical cases ASA accepted and fully managed (we prepared the compliance response and ran follow-ups in Seller Central). The figure combines reinstatement and restoration work across notice types in that managed population, not design patent matters alone. Declined intakes and self-serve template buyers are not in the rate.
Success: reinstatement or restoration of the privileges Amazon had restricted for that file (account, listing, verification, funds, or related, depending on the case). Amazon decides every outcome; the rate is not a guarantee for future cases.
Review: the underlying records were independently reviewed. Verified as of .
More methodology context and galleries: account reinstatement proof.
“In less than 24 hours after the appeal, my account was reactivated with all products available for sale.”
More outcomes and video proof: account reinstatement proof.
For sellers who already have the Performance Notification. Broader questions: full FAQ library.
If Amazon removed a listing over a design patent complaint, start with the questionnaire.
Listing removed rather than mis-described: listing reinstatement. Other notice names: all suspension types.
