If you are a trademark applicant, you have most likely received a letter or email about your trademark offering to “publish” it or some other service, often for a hefty sum. These emails or mailings may also warn of potential infringement by others if you do not take action. Often, these solicitations appear to be official mailings from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) or some other official trademark office, and can be very confusing for trademark applicants.
As trademark attorneys, we spend considerable time warning our clients about the solicitations and scams, as well as receiving them ourselves. As a practice, we often omit certain contact information from trademark applications, including applicants’ emails and phone numbers, in order to reduce how many of these solicitations our clients receive. However, a mailing address is required with a USPTO filing, and thus, has become a prime method for scammers to reach trademark applicants.
Recently, the Department of Justice, with assistance from the USPTO, announced that two California men pled guilty in one of these mass-mailing scams targeting owners of U.S. trademark applications. The defendants admitted to stealing approximately $1.66 million from registrants and applicants of U.S. trademarks through companies called Trademark Compliance Center (TCC) and Trademark Compliance Office (TCO).
Despite this recent success tackling this issue, other similar companies continue to operate, and new trademark scammers will inevitably pop up. Trademark applicants and their attorneys must remain vigilant regarding trademark solicitations. The USPTO’s website includes warnings about these types of companies and can be found at https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-getting-started/non-uspto-solicitations. Some of the other currently operating companies listed on the USPTO website include:
Patent & Trademark Resource Center (Seattle & Woodinville, WA)
Patent and Trademark Organization (New York, NY)
Trademark Office Ltd. (New York, NY)
U.S. Trademark Compliance Office (Wilmington, DE)
Patent & Trademark Bureau (Philadelphia, PA)
Patent & Trademark Office (555 Madison Ave., New York, NY)
Patent & Trademark Office (299 Park Ave., New York, NY)
Patent & Trademark Agency (New York, NY)
Trademark and Patent Office (Los Angeles, CA)
P.T.M.A. Patent and Trademark Association (New York, NY)
If you prefer to watch a quick (and somewhat cheesy) video, the USPTO has put together this news-style video discussing trademark solicitations, found here: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-getting-started/process-overview/trademark-information-network.
Moreover, if you receive a letter, email, or other type of correspondence regarding your trademark and are uncertain about its validity, be certain to contact one of the attorneys at Cahill IP, or other experienced trademark counsel, to assist you with this issue. In addition to helping you avoid unnecessarily paying these companies, we can also make a report to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to continue the greater efforts to prevent these types of abuses against trademark applicants.