2024-07-24
The USPTO warned that trademark applicants and registrants have paid fees to private companies, mistakenly thinking they were paying fees required by the USPTO. The USPTO does not endorse any of these private companies and you are not required to use them.
Watch for official USPTO emails about your registration.
USPTO emails are important because your registration may expire or be canceled unless you maintain it. The USPTO uses email to:
- Send you courtesy reminders of upcoming deadlines for necessary maintenance filings.
- Notify you if someone files a petition to cancel your registration with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
The USPTO does NOT send reminders by regular mail. Put the USPTO on your “approved-senders list” so email from the USPTO is not treated as junk mail.
How to stay up to date
Your email address may change over time. Update it with the USPTO whenever it changes, including if an attorney represented you before your trademark registered but now that attorney no longer represents you. Use the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) Change Address or Representation form at https://teas.uspto.gov/wna/ccr/car.
Beware of potentially misleading offers and notices.
All official correspondence about your registration will be from the “United States Patent and Trademark Office” in Alexandria, VA, and, if by email, from the domain “@uspto.gov.” USPTO email reminders will direct you to make al necessary filings and pay al associated fees through TEAS, and the USPTO will not request any fees by mail.
Private companies NOT associated with the USPTO often use trademark application and registration information from the USPTO databases to mail or email trademark-related solicitations. These mailings may offer legal services, trademark monitoring services, recording trademarks with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and “registering” trademarks in a private registry. Most require “fees” to be paid. These companies may have names similar to the USPTO and include the terms “United States,” “U.S.” “Trademark,” “Patent,” “Registration,” “Office,” or “Agency.” Some companies attempt to make their offers and notices look like official government documents by using data publicly available from USPTO records.
Where to report misleading offers and notices.
fI you receive a trademark-related offer or notice that you believe is misleading, please immediately file a consumer complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at http://www.FTC.gov and retain the notice and the envelope it came in. The USPTO also encourages recipients of misleading trademark-related mailings to contact their state consumer protection authorities.
For more information, including examples, visit the USPTO webpage, “Caution: misleading notices” at HTTPS://www.uspto.gov/TrademarkSolicitations. If the company that contacted you is not identified on the USPTO webpage, please email TMScams@uspto.gov and attach a digital photograph of the notice and the envelope it came in, so that USPTO can consider adding the example to the USPTO webpage. Unfortunately, the USPTO does not have the legal authority to pursue refunds from a private company for you if you paid money or signed up for services based on a misleading offer or notice.