Brand Protection on Walmart: What You Need to Know

If you sell on Amazon, you should be familiar with the Amazon Brand Registry, which helps brand owners protect their trademarks on Amazon. Enrollment gives brand owners access to powerful tools, including proprietary text and image search, and increased authority over product listings with their brand name.

Amazon launched the first version of the registry in 2015 and the second version in 2019. A couple of years later, Walmart followed suit and launched its own version of the registry, dubbed “Walmart Brand Portal”.

The concepts are the same. The portal makes it easier for brand owners to manage and protect their trademarks on Walmart’s online marketplace.

One important difference is that brand owners with a pending trademark application can enroll in the Amazon Brand Registry. However, Walmart only allows brand owners with registered trademarks to enroll in its portal. This is problematic since it takes more than a year to register a trademark with the USPTO (assuming a smooth registration process). As long as Walmart maintains this policy, the portal will be of limited use to brand owners. Hopefully, we will see a change to this requirement soon.