Recognizing common scams

Scammers call a trademark customer and falsely claim to be from the USPTO. They use fake caller ID information to impersonate a USPTO employee to trick you into providing personal information or paying excessive or nonexistent fees. 

They may tell you that your application won’t be assigned to an examining attorney or move forward in the registration process because you’re missing certain required fees.

Here's what you can do if you receive a spoofed phone call.

After you submit a trademark application or post-registration filing to us, an examining attorney or post-registration examiner will contact you about your application or registration. Scammers try to take advantage of this by impersonating examiners to trick you into paying unnecessary fees.

A scam email may include your application serial number or registration number and your trademark, and state that you’re required to provide certain personal information, documents or USPTO forms, or your payment information in a response email. Scammers create and forward fake email chains supposedly from examining attorneys to you that falsely state you have additional filings and fees due. The scammers then offer to do the fake work for you.

These emails look official at first glance, however, authentic USPTO emails sent directly to you will end in “@uspto.gov.”

How to protect yourself

• Check Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (TSDR). Official USPTO communications, including office actions or letters with requests for payment or other information, are always uploaded to TSDR under the “documents” tab. If it’s not in TSDR, it’s not an official communication. 
• If your application hasn’t yet been assigned to an examining attorney, call the Trademark Assistance Center (TAC) at 1-800-786-9199 to confirm if the email is genuine.
• If you have a recent office action from the USPTO in your TSDR record, call the number in the signature block of the office action to confirm the email is genuine.

You might receive deceptive notices in the mail. Scammers try to convince you to use their business’s services or you’ll risk costly fines, loss of your trademark rights, or loss of your application or registration. You might receive these notices at any time—before you apply to register your trademark, after you file, or even after your trademark has registered.

These solicitations attempt to appear as legitimate as possible, and may include terms like “United States,” “Trademark,” “Office,” or “Agency” as part of their business names.

Don’t be fooled by an offer for services that aren’t required or typically needed. For example:

• A marketing company you hired falsely states that you must register your trademark and demands you use their overpriced services to register or you’ll lose your rights.
• A company using a name similar to the USPTO or sending official-looking communications demands you use their services to register, respond, or take other action to maintain your registered trademark.
• An attorney emails you with fake promises to accelerate the registration of your trademark and charge you less than other attorneys as long as you pay all fees upfront and agree to only communicate through email and text messages.

Notices often contain fine print explaining the company isn’t a federal agency. We have many examples of solicitations customers have received to help you identify deceptive solicitations and renewal notices scams.

How to protect yourself

• Compare the USPTO employee's name in the email address you receive to the employee's name on your most recent office action, and call the Trademark Assistance Center at 1-800-786-9199 to confirm. All official USPTO emails sent directly to you will be from “@uspto.gov.” 
• Compare the company's name to the actual USPTO name. Let your computer mouse hover over the email address and see if a different underlying email address pops up. Look for slight misspellings in the company name, check the status or your application and your actual application or renewal deadlines using TSDR, and read the fine print on the communication.
• Research the company or entity that contacts you to see if they’re legitimate and to decide if it is offering a service you actually want or need.

If you’re considering hiring a company, like a filing firm, for application or registration-related filing services, make sure the company has a qualified U.S.-licensed attorney on staff.

Scammers file a request to change the email address in your USPTO trademark application or registration, without permission, to try to gain control of your trademark on e-commerce websites.

Some e-commerce websites require trademark owners to register their trademarks through their brand registries to cut down on counterfeits and fraud. If your trademark is registered with a brand registry, the e-commerce site sends a verification code to the correspondence email address of record for your application or registration. If scammers change your contact information in our database, the verification code gets sent to them and they may attempt to claim they’re the owners of the trademark on the brand registry.

How to protect yourself

• We automatically send an email alert message to the current email address on record in TSDR whenever we receive a request to change that email address. If you receive an alert message from TEAS@uspto.gov and don’t recognize the new email address listed in the message, reply to the TEAS mailbox and explain that you didn’t authorize this change.
• Use your USPTO.gov account to monitor application or registration changes by creating a customer docket and alerts. These alerts are separate from the automated changes of correspondence alerts sent by TEAS@uspto.gov.
• Regularly monitor your application or registration in TSDR to ensure that the information is correct and up to date.

Scammers improperly appoint U.S.-licensed attorneys in applications or registrations. Scammers will either:

• Use U.S.-licensed attorney information without the U.S.-licensed attorney’s knowledge or permission. The attorney hasn’t authorized the use of their information.
• Pay U.S.-licensed attorneys to use their name and bar registration details in trademark filings. The attorney has minimal, if any, participation in the application process.

Foreign filing firms are usually behind this scam and are trying to get around the USPTO’s requirement for foreign-domiciled owners to have a U.S.-licensed attorney represent them in trademark proceedings. 

Anyone who wrongfully uses an attorney’s information in a trademark application or registration may face sanctions and criminal prosecution. 

If you know of an attorney who is wrongfully allowing others to use their information or signature, contact the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) by emailing OED@uspto.gov.

Some companies and applicants claim to be domiciled in the U.S. by using fake owner addresses on their applications. Since foreign-domiciled applicants and registrants are required to have a U.S.-licensed attorney to file, some companies and applicants try to get around that requirement by entering a fake domicile address.

If false information is used on your application, your application could be at risk of administrative sanctions or a reexamination or expungement proceeding if your trademark registers.

Specimens are vital to proving how you’re using your trademark in the marketplace. They’re evidence we require for most applications and registration maintenance filings. However, some applicants or registrants include specimens that seem real at face value but were created on e-commerce specimen farm websites. They’re digitally created, altered, or mocked-up, don’t show how the trademark is actually being used in commerce, and often are created just to register a trademark. 

Filers who knowingly submit fake specimens are attempting to trick the USPTO to receive the same benefits as legitimately registered trademarks. This is against our rules, weakens the USPTO register integrity, and makes it harder and more expensive for new trademarks to register.

If you provide a specimen in your application that’s fraudulent, your application can be sanctioned and terminated, or subject to reexamination or expungement if your trademark registers.

Only submit specimens that are actually in use in commerce .

You cannot sign someone else’s name or allow someone else to sign your name on a trademark document. Even with electronic filing, you cannot type someone else’s name into a signature box on our forms. Doing so can result in sanctions and termination of an application or registration, because:

• Submissions that are illegitimately signed are invalid and potentially fraudulent.
• All trademark documents must be personally signed by the person identified in the submission. 

If you see your signature on a submission in a trademark matter and you didn’t personally enter the signature, contact us at TMScams@uspto.gov.

Applicants specify more goods or services in their application than they’re actually using or have an intention of using with their trademark. This fraudulent over-claiming of goods or services is usually an attempt to either:

• Broaden the scope of protection a trademark provides
• Block others from registering their trademarks
• Improperly warehouse trademark registrations for the sole purpose of selling or licensing them to others

For example, a small lighting company sells LED lighting fixtures and light bulbs. On their trademark application, they include these goods. However, they also include air purifiers, which they don’t intend to sell. 

When an application claims use of a trademark for a wide variety of goods or services, you may be required to show additional proof of actual use in commerce of your trademark with certain goods or services, even if you already provided a specimen. If your trademark is registered, you may get audited and will then need to provide extensive proof of use of your trademark after filing your registration maintenance filings. If you intentionally over-claimed, your application or registration may even be terminated or your registration canceled in an expungement or reexamination proceeding.