Merch reviews reject designs for a single trademarked phrase, and repeated rejections cost you the account. Check the words on the shirt before you upload them.
Scan a listing free
No account. Under a second. Every phrase explained.
Free
Screening only. Not legal advice. Coverage varies by register; see the panel above.
What Merch actually rejects
Merch by Amazon’s content review reads the text on the design, the title, the brand and the bullets, and compares them against trademark records. It rejects on a single match — often a slogan you thought was generic, because slogans are exactly what gets registered in class 25. Three or four rejections in a short time and the account is under review.
TM Atlas runs the same comparison, with the same registers, before you upload.
What the scan checks
Field
Why it matters
Design text
Every printed word and phrase; slogans are checked whole and in 2–3-word pieces
Matching is exact, prefix, word-contains, look-alike, sound-alike and transliterated, across 54.2 million marks in 85 registers. Classes default to 25, 24, 18 and 21.
Reading the result
HIGH REVIEW — a live mark, identical or near-identical, in your classes. Merch will reject it. Change the phrase.
REVIEW — a look-alike or sound-alike. Open the mark: if it is dead or in unrelated goods, the reasons list says so.
LOW — nothing close in the registers we hold; see the coverage panel for which ones.
The niche-research habit
Merch sellers research niches by phrase. Run each candidate phrase through the brand name searchbefore designing, not after. A phrase with a live class-25 mark is not a niche, it is a rejection.
Merch rejected my design for trademark. It is just a common phrase — why?
Because common phrases get registered. “Let’s Go Brandon”, “Dad Bod”, “Blessed” and thousands of slogans are live marks in class 25. Merch checks the text on the design and the listing against them. TM Atlas checks the same text against the same registers, so you see the slogan mark before Merch does.
Should I check the design text or the listing?
Both. Put the words printed on the design in the design-text field, and the title, brand and bullets in theirs. Each field is scanned; the score shows which one carries the risk.
Which classes matter for Merch?
25 (clothing) first, then 24 (textiles), 18 (bags) and 21 (mugs, drinkware) for the other Merch products. These are the defaults; change them if you sell only one product type.
Can I use a trademark check to prove good faith?
In the app, every scan is stored with a timestamp and version. If a design is challenged, you can show what you checked and when. That is evidence of diligence, not a legal defence — but it is what reviewers ask for.
Every listing, before it goes live
A free account saves each scan as evidence, keeps a catalog of your listings and lets you check a whole CSV at once.