Fighting Back Against Trademark Scams: What the USPTO’s Enforcement Push Means for Brand Owners and Their Counsel

By Anthony D. Marino

On May 27, 2026, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) hosted a USPTO Hour webinar featuring officials from the Trademark Register Protection Office that focused on the agency’s escalating battle against trademark scams. The presentation covered a dramatic surge in fraudulent activity targeting entrepreneurs and established brand owners alike, laid out aggressive new enforcement measures, and introduced advanced anti-fraud technology tools being deployed to protect the integrity of the U.S. trademark register. For business owners navigating the trademark process and in-house counsel managing trademark portfolios, the webinar highlights both emerging risks and new tools for safeguarding applications and registrations.

The USPTO’s Trademark Register Protection Office was established in 2020 with a core mission of protecting the integrity of the trademark register. As USPTO officials explained, the office’s “most urgent priority is combatting the explosion in trademark scams.” The schemes target brand owners at every stage of the trademark lifecycle, sometimes before an application is even filed. The most dangerous threat involves direct impersonation of the USPTO itself. Criminals pose as the agency, often luring unsuspecting business owners with deceptive offers for low-cost logo design services before pivoting to fraudulent trademark filing services. As noted during the webinar, the Federal Trade Commission ranks impersonation as a “top three fraud category, causing financial loss to a significant number of victims both in public and private sectors.”

The scope of trademark scam activity is staggering:

Many trademark scams begin before a business owner even files an application. Fraudulent filing firms target new entrepreneurs through social media and online advertising with offers that appear too good to be true. As the head of the USPTO’s Trademark Register Protection Office explained: “It almost always starts with the bait. These firms target new entrepreneurs on social media, or through ads with offers that seem too good to be true. Like a professional logo for just 50 bucks. Once they secure you as a customer for the design, they make their real move.”

The next move for these scammers is to create urgency around filing a trademark application, but USPTO rules require that anyone representing another person in a trademark matter be a licensed U.S. attorney in good standing. These scammers typically are not law firms, and to circumvent the attorney requirement, they may fabricate attorney names and bar license numbers or steal the credentials of real attorneys without their knowledge or consent.

The scammers then cash in by charging inflated fees: low initial quotes followed by fabricated charges such as “docketing fees,” “registration processing surcharges,” or “mandatory publication fees,” none of which are real USPTO charges. Because no actual attorney prepared or filed the application, the resulting applications are often fatally flawed and cannot be corrected. This leaves filing a new application and absorbing the loss as the applicant’s only recourse.

Because all trademark application records must be publicly viewable by law, applicants’ names, addresses, and email addresses become part of the public record upon filing. One USPTO official called this “a gold mine for fraudsters.” Post-filing scams take the form of fake invoices, urgent warnings, and misleading service offers designed to look like official USPTO communications. Many of these scams use the USPTO logo and official-sounding language to trick recipients into paying for services that are either completely unnecessary or do not exist.

The USPTO recommends watching for these warning signs.

Pressure Tactics: Scammers create a sense of panic with fabricated deadlines. The USPTO always provides ample time to respond to any legitimate deadline and does not issue surprise 24-hour notices.

Suspicious Fees: Scammers request fees for odd amounts or nonexistent services. Business owners should cross-reference any charge against the official USPTO fee schedule published on its website.

Non-Government Email Addresses: Official USPTO communications will always come from an email ending in @USPTO.gov, not fake domains such as “USPTOservices.com” or “trademark.office.org”.

Meaningless Buzzwords: References to “attestation” or “verification processes” are not official USPTO procedures and should be treated as red flags.

Since the USPTO lacks direct criminal or civil enforcement authority, it cannot prosecute bad actors. However, the agency has rolled out an aggressive administrative enforcement program across several fronts.

Sanctions Orders: The sanctions program has been the most effective mechanism for removing fraudulent filings. The office identifies widespread patterns of behavior indicating intent to circumvent USPTO rules, and issues sanctions orders that can invalidate thousands of registrations at once. This can leave applicants high and dry since an agent’s actions are imputed to the client at the USPTO. As one official stated bluntly: “You cannot rehabilitate an invalid application, just refile it without the scammer involved.”

Denial of Filing Dates: When the USPTO has evidence that attorney credentials have been hijacked to file applications, it denies filing dates and removes those applications from the system. This fiscal year, the office has removed 8,041 applications through this mechanism, and recently cancelled 10,000 serial numbers in a single batch using new tools.

Non-Use Proceedings and Audits: The USPTO uses its authority under the Trademark Modernization Act to initiate non-use proceedings against registrations linked to “specimen farm” websites, which are sites created solely for the purpose of obtaining registrations and not to sell goods or services. The agency also conducts post-registration audits, including both random and directed audits of maintenance filings.

Domain Name Enforcement: The USPTO pursues takedowns of domains impersonating the agency by working with domain name registrars under the government impersonation provisions of their terms of use. The presenters acknowledged this is a “game of Whac-a-Mole,” but the Office continues to pursue domain name enforcement as resources allow.

Account Deactivation: The USPTO has deactivated 1,029 user accounts over the last three years for violations of its account agreement and is ramping up monitoring. Account holders must now select a user role (Owner, U.S. Licensed Attorney, Canadian Attorney, Agent, or Support Staff), and the agency monitors whether filing behavior matches the declared role.

The USPTO is shifting from manual processes to automated systems across several areas.

Account Monitoring: A new tool identifies anomalies in account behavior by analyzing over 40 different attributes and submission data to detect unusual patterns of fraudulent activity. The system flags accounts for human review, and the presenters were clear that “we’re certainly not taking the human out of the loop here.”

Case Management: A customized case management system organizes and tracks reviews of suspicious filings, replacing a cumbersome system of multiple spreadsheets that had previously been used.

Bulk Transactions: New tools allow attorneys to move groups of suspected applications out of examination in large batches. For example, the system can upload a public note into a thousand application records in minutes, rather than processing them one by one.

The Future: AI Fraud Risk Predictor: The USPTO has issued a request for information seeking commercially available AI tools that can review account data, filing data, and credit card data to detect fraud indicators and calculate risk scores. This remains in the concept phase but could represent a major expansion of automated enforcement at the Office.

Trademark Portal: The USPTO’s longer-term solution for fraud is a secure communication portal that presenters described as akin to “your banking app on your phone.” The portal would allow secure communication between the agency and customers, thereby rendering impersonation scams ineffective. This solution is estimated to be one to two years away.

The webinar spent considerable time reiterating the USPTO’s signature rule: practitioners cannot delegate their signature to support staff, even on forms that do not include a verified statement. Signatures are “not technical, they are substantive,” and delegating a signature could subject a client’s application and registration to invalidation through a sanctions order. The presenters distinguished improper signatures from “defective” signatures, noting that a defective signature is one where the wrong party accidentally signed, not where a practitioner “knowingly or with reckless disregard” violated the signature rule.

Based on the webinar, business owners and their counsel should think about the following protective measures:

1. Verify Credentials Using “Ask, Then Verify”: Before engaging trademark counsel, ask for the attorney’s full name, state of licensure, and bar number, then check the information through the state bar or American Bar Association website. As the presenters summarized, “this two-step process takes just a few minutes, but it is the single most effective way to separate a legitimate professional from a scam artist.”

2. Manage Public Information Exposure: Use a dedicated email address solely for trademark correspondence, and use a P.O. Box as the public mailing address for applications. While a domicile address is required, it can be kept private by entering a different address in the mailing address field. Providing a telephone number is not required.

3. Use TSDR as the Source of Truth: The Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR) system is the official record. Any communication or demand not reflected in TSDR should be treated as suspicious.

4. Authenticate USPTO Communications: Legitimate USPTO emails always end in @USPTO.gov. Any email from a non-.gov domain is not from the agency. Be alert to urgency tactics, unexpected fees, and references to fabricated processes such as “attestation” or “verification,” which are commonly used by scammers.

5. Understand Sanctions Risk: Applications associated with fraudulent filing activity, even where the applicant was an innocent victim, cannot be rehabilitated. If a registration is being held for administrative review, the most practical course is to refile with legitimate counsel rather than wait for the sanctions process to conclude.

6. Use Third-Party Challenge Tools: The USPTO encourages using letters of protest, expungement and reexamination non-use proceedings, and opposition and cancellation proceedings to challenge suspect registrations that may be blocking your legitimate applications.

7. Report Suspicious Activity: Report scams to TMscams@USPTO.gov, the Federal Trade Commission, and the FBI, which have the enforcement authority the USPTO lacks. Attorney misconduct can be reported to the Office of Enrollment and Discipline at OED@USPTO.gov.

The USPTO outlined a clear protocol for those who believe they have been victimized:

1. Do not engage: Do not make any payment or provide personal information.

2. Verify independently: Use the USPTO’s official TSDR system to check the actual status of your application or registration.

3. Consult your attorney: If represented, contact counsel immediately.

4. Educate yourself: Review the USPTO’s list of known fraudulent solicitations on its website.

5. Report the incident: File reports with TMscams@USPTO.gov, the FTC, and the FBI.

The USPTO’s message to brand owners is clear: trademark fraud has reached crisis levels, and the agency is responding with a strong combination of administrative enforcement, technology investment, and interagency cooperation. For in-house counsel, the webinar shows the importance of rigorous vetting procedures when engaging outside trademark services and the consequences of fraudulent filings — consequences that attach regardless of the applicant’s innocence. For business owners and entrepreneurs, vigilance remains the first and most effective line of defense. As the presenters noted, “we’re trying to minimize the friction for our good faith applicants while maximizing the friction for bad faith folks.” Brand owners who stay informed, verify communications on their own, and use the USPTO’s available tools will be well-equipped to protect their trademark portfolios.