We frequently get questions from our clients about “important notifications” from companies offering to monitor or renew their trademarks or to record their trademark registrations with US Customs & Border Protection (CBP).
In the past, these scam requests have come in the mail, typically looking like invoices or letters, often containing false due dates or threats about loss of rights if you don’t send payment now.
Now trademark owners are also receiving fraudulent emails that appear to originate from @uspto.gov, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) domain.
These messages, which spoof the USPTO email address, falsely claim that the USPTO has a new policy requiring registration of clients and provide incorrect information about actual filing requirements.
Sometimes the filings and services mentioned in these scam communications are completely unnecessary. Even when they are required, the price demanded by the scammer is often exorbitant. The same is true for optional filings that may—or may not be—recommended in your particular situation, such as registration of your trademark with the CBP.
Unfortunately, it’s easy for scammers to obtain enough specific information about trademarks to appear to be real government agencies. Federal trademark applications and registrations are publicly available online, and they include the owner of the trademark as well as relevant dates.
This means that you must be extremely careful when you receive any type of request for payment. You shouldn’t, however, simply delete or throw away requests you’re not sure about, since they may actually be from the USPTO. In that event, ignoring the request may lead to loss of your rights.
Carefully read any letter or notice you receive. Scam notices often say outright that they aren’t official government notices.
If you’re not sure about a particular notice, you can:
• Check the status of your application or registration on the USPTO’s Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (TSDR) database by entering your application or registration number — with a few exceptions, if the communication you received isn’t there, it didn’t come from the USPTO;
• Check the USPTO’s list of known scams;
• Do an internet search for more information about that request; and
• Check the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) list of scams.
Please feel free to contact us for assistance if you still can’t tell if a communication you’ve received is real or if you need help registering, protecting or enforcing your trademarks.
Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash
