Trademark Scammers

Trademarks are a powerful part of any successful business. Many of my clients own and maintain valuable trademarks that are prized assets used to promote their products and services. Unfortunately, a number of unscrupulous companies have decided to jump in and try to take advantage of trademark owners and applicants.

Here’s how it works. The scammers will scrape contact information from the website of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This information will provide the contact information for the person or company that owns the registered trademark or the application for registration. Then, the scammer will prepare an official looking letter telling the trademark owner that they need to pay money for trademark renewal, registration, or some other purpose. In many cases, the official looking letter will warn the trademark owner that their trademark is about to be cancelled unless they immediately send some money to the scammer.

The hope is that the unsuspecting trademark owner will be motivated to pay the bogus invoice in order to preserve their trademark rights. However, in many cases, the information in the letter or email is either misleading or simply false. I’ve had a significant number of clients contact me in a panic because they thought they were about to lose their trademark. In other cases, the scammer offers to provide services that aren’t really needed at all.

For example, the scammer might offer to include the registered trademark in a “global registry” for worldwide protection. Sadly, there is no such registry and including the registered mark in their directory won’t actually provide any additional protection at all. It will, however, provide additional funding to the scammers and encourage them to continue the scam with other trademark owners.

It’s gotten so bad that the government has now published a notice at the official USPTO website explaining the problem and warning people about the scammers. You can read the official notice here.

Bottom line? If you are a trademark owner or if you have applied for a trademark, carefully review any notice that you receive so that you can verify that it comes from the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Virginia. If you have any doubts, contact a trademark attorney and they will be happy to advise you and explain what, if anything, you need to do.

Remember – Be Smart. Be Legal.

 Disclaimer – Yes, I’m a lawyer, but I’m not your lawyer. All information in this post is provided for educational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice for any person or specific situation.