Understanding Walmart’s Intellectual Property Policies
You've just found out your product or your photography has been copied, you've traced one of these infringing listings back to Walmart.com and Walmart.ca. Now what?
Firstly, don't panic. The good news is that Walmart normally responds within a few days to removal requests and you will soon be able to take back control of your IP.
Steps to Submit a Takedown Request on Walmart
The first thing you need to do is go to brandportal.walmart.com/ipservices. This is Walmart's IP infringement platform and can be used to report infringements without having to sign in or set up an account.
The reporting page invites you to enter your personal details, that of the reporter of the IP Infringement and the owner of the Intellectual Property itself. If you are reporting from a country outside the USA it is still possible to report, however you may need to shorten your zip/post code for the system to accept it.
Once personal details have been entered, you now need to turn your attention to the type of infringement you would like to report. When deciding on which IP to enforce it is important to remember that Walmart.com does not ship outside the US. This means that you must have IP that is valid within the USA or Canada. It is also important to remember that you don't need paid IP to enforce a copyright. For more details about unpaid copyright protection read our blog here.
The next stage is to enter the URL and seller of the infringing listing. The seller can be found half way down the listings page on the right hand side. If you need to add additional URLs, click on 'Add URL' and a new box for the details will appear.
The final detail to add is to write how the product or photography in the listing/s in question infringes on your own IP. Here it is best to include links to your original material or links to your Patent or Design Registration.
Finally tick the consent boxes and pop a digital signature in the box. Once you click 'Submit Claim' you will be sent a confirmation code to the email that you entered at the top of the page. This code will need to be entered with 10 minutes it being sent, so make sure you copy it and enter it back into you claim form straight away.
Congratulations you have made your first Walmart submission!
Hopefully this doesn't become something you need to do regularly, however if it starts to become frequent, you may want to consider asking for help.
IP Moat is a platform designed to give you a dashboard to find and remove listings that infringe on your IP from a range of online marketplaces. Therefore, you don't need to go through lengthy set up processes for each different marketplace. The best thing is, it's FREE to find those infringing listings. All you need to do is enter your IP. Sign up for free online marketplace searches at www.ipmoat.ai. Or drop us an email at hello@ipmoat.ai to arrange a demo and a chat
