Reddit mentions of Trademark: Legal Care for Your Business & Product Name

Simply put: Trademarks are not a completely objective matter. Also there is a big difference between actual, legitimate trademark infringement, and just sending a takedown notice to a merch seller or having seller support deny your shirt.

If I trademarked "Got Milk?" and I was solely a t-shirt company and this was my big slogan, it is fair to say that "Got Milk" would be infringing if they were also a t-shirt company. Please note that this will not be the issue with nearly anyone on this sub. You are probably not going to get involved in an actual trademark suit over merch sales. Instead you will be having your shirts denied, or having your shirts pulled because a rights owner complained.

Let us assume for a moment that "Got Milk" does not infringe on the trademark mentioned above. (It very likely does infringe and you would likely not come out on top in a dispute, but lets just assume it does not infringe). This is such a nuanced issue that Amazon is going to act with caution. If they find similar marks or their system detects similar marks, it is going to be denied. Just dont risk it.

If the rights owner of "Got Milk?" sends a C&D or has Amazon take down your shirts, Amazon will almost always comply and tell you two to sort it out. This is simply how it works on Amazon. Even if you are in the right, Amazon is going to remove the shirt.

Because of this, I think the best advice is that if something is trademarked, just stay away from anything similar. If you wanted to make a shirt saying "Got Gorillas?" Maybe you could get away with it in a civil dispute (Although, probably not), maybe you couldnt. It doesnt matter, though, because you likely wont make it through Amazons approval process and if the rights owner complains you will definitely get taken down. Each takedown and denial does stack up against you as we have seen in the past. There will always be more designs. Longevity is important in this business.


If you want a basic understanding of this sort of thing, you can buy and read this: https://www.amazon.com/Trademark-Legal-Care-Business-Product/dp/1413322948/ref=dp_ob_image_bk

I've heard of some professors using this as a supplemental for intro courses. It isnt designed for university so its easy to read, but still gives great information which will at least give you a basic understanding of trademarks. That doesnt sound like much, but most users here dont even have a basic understanding of these things.