Trademark Owners Beware of Scam Monitoring and Related Services

In the last 24 hours we have received dozens of calls from our customers regarding "official" correspondence stating that they owed money to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or otherwise for the monitoring of their recently filed trademarks. Prompted by this new waive of correspondence we will again post our comments on these "services" as a public advisory to all.

A few weeks after you file for a trademark you receive what appear to be official-looking invoices from places like "The U.S. Trademark Office" or similar designations which seem oddly similar to the official designation the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO").

Clients and all who read this post beware, in our opinion such purported services are, in essence, scams. Of late we have seen them taking two general forms:

Monitoring Services

Our clients receive an official-looking invoice for some amount of money, typically in the nature of hundreds to thousands of U.S. dollars, stating that they must now sign up to have their mark monitored and that payment of the invoice is, in essence, required. As the paper which accompanies these demands are often made to look strikingly similar to correspondence from the official USPTO many can be confused and possibly pay the invoice without thinking about it.

Do not!

They are not required. It is merely a hard form of solicitation which, as we stated above, borders on a scam.


International Protection or World Trademark Register

The second one we have been seeing a lot of lately are offers to protect our clients' marks on the "World Trademark Register" or some like designation. We've been doing this for a long time and we protect our clients' marks in pretty much every country in the world. As such we are confident in saying we have never heard of a "World Trademark Register" or anything like what they are purportedly advertising.

Here's the kicker too - most of these services are from outside of the United States. As such, once you send your credit card information along it would be rather, well, difficult to ever get a refund back on a disputed charge.

Summary

So please be advised that these "services" are out there targeting trademark holders and especially those trademark holders who have recently filed applications with the USPTO.

Don't be fooled.

As always, if you have any questions about something you have received in the mail or generally any questions regarding trademarks you can give us a call and we'll let you know if it is official or not.

TheTrademarkCompany.com