While government agencies typically embrace innovation much slower than the private sector, many legal processes can now be performed using the internet. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has certainly made vast strides to enable users to take care of trademark filings pretty much entirely online. The USPTO has constantly sought to improve its various websites’ functionalities, and it now offers arguably some of the more user-friendly interfaces of any federal agency.
The convenience of accessing the USPTO’s data, however, has invited certain nefarious elements. Private companies regularly mine the USPTO’s online records. By itself, that’s not a problem, and many third parties use the easily accessible data to provide helpful services – ourselves included, we feel comfortable saying. Unfortunately, plenty of scammers are more than happy to separate business owners from their hard-earned money without actually providing any meaningful value. (As an initial step, consider checking out the USPTO’s resource center about the various trademark scams out there, as well as this informative presentation.)
Because the USPTO’s data necessarily provides applicants’ mailing addresses, these third-party services often send formal-looking letters. Regardless of whether you have an attorney prosecute a trademark application on your behalf, as an applicant, you’re bound to receive spam along the way.
For example, with respect to our own trademark registrations, we’ve received mailings like the one below.
“Patent & Trademark Office.” Sounds super official, right? (Spoiler alert: the USPTO isn’t based in Washington state.)
The more infuriating thing here is that they try alarmist tactics, such as the “PENDING TRADEMARK CANCELLATION” banner at the top. They also list the “Renewal date” as being two years earlier than the USPTO would even allow such a filing to occur, and three years before the deadline for such a filing. And notably, the fees being proposed are more expensive than what a firm like ours would charge to file a Section 8 renewal for a single trademark registration (inclusive of pass-through government fees).
These scams have become so common, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Commerce deemed it necessary to obtain formal registrations for the word marks “USPTO” and “UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE,” as well as for stylized versions of the abbreviation and full name. Securing these registrations now enables the USPTO to enforce trademark laws against imitators. You can’t make this stuff up.
Regardless of whether we’re the ones handling your trademark application or monitoring your trademarks after registration, if you receive an official-looking letter relating to your trademark and you’re trying to determine whether it’s legitimate, feel free to reach out. We’ll be happy to let you know whether it’s something you need to deal with or, more likely, whether it warrants seamless hand-to-recycling-bin delivery.