Avoiding Common Scams and Protecting Your Trademark Application or Registration
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) faces issues with companies or individuals posing as official entities to solicit personal and financial information from trademark owners. By recognizing common signs of a scam, you can protect your trademark and avoid costly mistakes.
Scammers often create a sense of urgency by warning you about a problem with your trademark application or registration. They will pressure you to act immediately and tell you that the only way to safeguard your trademark is to pay them a fee or provide personal information. It’s important to remember that USPTO will NEVER ask you for your personal or payment information over the phone, in an email, or text. All requests of this nature for any applications handled by our firm will come directly from our firm. If you receive an email directly from an entity claiming to be the USPTO, it is almost certainly a scam.
Some scammers are private companies or individuals that may look official but are not. These scammers pretend to be representatives of the USPTO by using a similar variation such as the “Patent and Trademark Bureau” or “Trademark Renewal Service.” Any such variation is not issued by an official source and should be ignored. If you receive an email from someone claiming to be a representative from the USPTO, check their email address or any website address they direct you to. All official website addresses end in “.gov” and all official communications from USPTO end in “@uspto.gov.” If you receive an official-looking email address that does not end in “@uspto.gov,” do not respond and delete the email. These scammers are often convincing because they weave in publicly available information about your trademark and may even cite federal statutes. Public information that scammers may use to appear official includes your application serial number, registration number, your name as well as any addresses, phone numbers, or email addresses that you provided to the USPTO.
Other companies pretend to be law firms specializing in trademark registration or other companies that offer post-registration services. They often have official-looking websites and have vague pricing information for their services. Some of these fake companies include Trademark Swipe, Lawsuit Crafts, Trademark Registers, and WTP. These companies may claim that they can expedite your application or that your registration is at risk of expiring if they do not register it in their database. Generally, a solicitation is a scam if it creates a sense of urgency and requires prompt, upfront payment for a service.
As always, if you are unsure about whether a correspondence is legitimate, we are happy to review it for you. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns!
