SEATTLE—Aug. 11, 2020-- Today, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced the expansion of Project Zero to seven new countries - Australia, Brazil, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey, and the UAE - making it available in 17 countries where Amazon has a store. Project Zero combines Amazon’s advanced technology, machine learning, and innovation with the sophisticated knowledge that brands have of their own intellectual property so we can together drive counterfeits to zero.

Launched in 2019, Project Zero builds on Amazon’s long-standing work and investments to ensure that customers always receive authentic goods when shopping on Amazon. Over 10,000 brands—from large, global brands to emerging entrepreneurs including Arduino, BMW, ChessCentral, LifeProof, OtterBox, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Veet – have already enrolled in Project Zero.

“Amazon is committed to protecting our customers and the brands we collaborate with worldwide,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Vice President of Worldwide Customer Trust and Partner Support. “Project Zero has been a leap forward in protecting brands, especially for those that use all three of its components.”

BMW, one of the world’s leading automotive brands with a portfolio of global trademarks, said: “Project Zero has been a very easy and effective tool at protecting BMW on Amazon. We are very appreciative of the tools Amazon has built to enable us to protect our brand.”

“We are excited to see that Project Zero is expanding into the new marketplaces,” said Adrienne McNicholas, Co-Founder and CEO of Food Huggers. “The program has already had a very positive impact on our enforcement efforts and we are glad to see Amazon’s continued commitment to protecting our brand across the world.”

Brands that are enrolled in Amazon Project Zero and already have a trademark enrolled in one of the newly launched countries will automatically be able to use Project Zero in these additional stores. New brands can learn more about and enroll in Amazon Project Zero at: www.ProjectZero.com.

Project Zero uses three key components to protect and empower brands:

· Amazon’s automated protections proactively and continuously scan more than 5 billion attempted daily product listing updates globally to look for suspicious listings. These automated protections are powered by Amazon’s machine learning and are continuously fed new information, so we continue to get better in automatically preventing and blocking potential counterfeit listings.

· We have invested significant resources over the years to proactively prevent counterfeits and continue to innovate and build technology-based solutions. Project Zero goes further with a self-service tool to empower brands and provides them with an unprecedented ability to directly remove listings from our store. These removals also feed into our automated protections, so we can better catch potential counterfeit listings proactively in the future.

· Product serialization is enabled by a unique code that brands apply within their manufacturing or packaging process, and it allows us to individually scan and confirm the authenticity of every single purchase of a brand’s enrolled products from Amazon’s stores. While product serialization is optional, brands enrolled in Project Zero are seeing the best results when using product serialization.

Project Zero is among a suite of tools Amazon has introduced to empower brands to protect their IP.

· Most recently, Amazon launched the Amazon Counterfeit Crime Unit (ACCU), a global team that will investigate and bring legal action against bad actors, protecting customers, selling partners, and brands. To learn more: https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-establishes-counterfeit-crimes-unit-bring-counterfeiters

· Amazon IP Accelerator helps businesses more quickly obtain intellectual property (IP) rights and brand protection in Amazon’s stores. The program was designed specifically with small and medium businesses in mind and is available to entrepreneurs worldwide that are looking to secure intellectual property in the U.S. IP Accelerator connects entrepreneurs with US law firms with expertise in trademark applications. Entrepreneurs also benefit from pre-negotiated rates. To learn more: https://brandservices.amazon.com/ipaccelerator

· Amazon Brand Registry, a free service that gives brand owners access to a powerful set of tools that help them deliver an accurate and trusted customer experience on Amazon while protecting a brand’s IP. To enroll and learn more: https://brandservices.amazon.com/

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNewsEU.

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