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 |
| Brand | Your Merch brand name, exact and similar |
| Title | Capitalised names, coined words, product-name phrases |
| Bullets | Hidden references (“for fans of X”) |
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 search before designing, not after. A phrase with a live class-25 mark is not a niche, it is a rejection.
Bulk-check a design list by CSV · Amazon listing check · KDP check