Shortly after filing a trademark application, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) or with another non-US, government trademark agency, a growing number of our clients inevitably receive one or more official-looking letters or invoices seeking payment related to the trademark registration. You may have received one of these notices in the mail or via email yourself—a solicitation, formatted to look like an official government document, that lists data about your trademark application and even an image of your trademark (all of which is publicly available information). Many of these companies use terms that resemble an official agency name including one or more of the terms “United States,” “U.S.,” “Trademark,” “Patent,” “Registration,” “Office,” or “Agency.” The truth is, these solicitations have absolutely no legal or other significance to your trademark registration.

If read carefully, you can see that the solicitations provide useless services such as listing the application on an internet database or sending a reminder that an issued registration is up for renewal sometime in the future. Some of the solicitations don’t even disclose what services they are providing. These worthless notices are convincing and tend to solicit significant amounts of money from the trademark owner, often exceeding the actual fees necessary to register a trademark. Unfortunately, some trademark owners pay these invoices, believing they are legitimate, official invoices, because they are unaware of the scams and do not read the solicitations carefully.

Any official postal correspondence regarding your trademark registration or application in the United States will be from the “United States Patent and Trademark Office” with an address in Alexandria, Virginia. Any emails related to your trademark registration or application will be from the domain “@uspto.gov.” For non-US registrations and applications, official correspondence will also be from official government agencies. Warnings regarding fraudulent solicitations may also be found on the warnings page on the World Intellectual Property Organization’s website.

Also note, if you hired AMC Legal to file your trademark registration application on your behalf, any official correspondence regarding that application will be sent to AMC Legal.

If you ever have a question about your trademark registration or application, please contact us, or you can always contact the USPTO or non-US agency directly and ask about the status of your registration or application.

Need Help? Get In Touch.

Dr. Allison Cychosz
AMC Legal, P.C.
(630) 590-3640
info@amclegal.net

Please call for a free consultation

This is not legal advice and you should seek the counsel of an attorney.