Protecting Trademarks and Brands Against Sophisticated AI-Driven Scams and Schemes

The need for heightened awareness of solicitations and scams is such that even the USPTO has dedicated a page on its website providing information on common scams and warning signs when someone is contacted about their marks. Regardless of the type of solicitation or scam, these communications share a common trait — use of publicly available information about the trademark owner and its trademark registration or recently filed application.

Increasing Sophistication in Efforts to Exploit Trademark Applicants and Owners

Practitioners and trademark owners have long had to deal with unsolicited offers sent on official looking correspondence by mail and email from companies using names similar to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. These unsolicited communications offer unnecessary publication of trademark application details in unofficial third-party publications, or other asserted advertising or protection services, all for a fee disguised to be required to advance the trademark application through to registration or maintain the trademark. Some also offer to assist in the renewal of existing registrations for a fee, but often have key registration details wrong — most notably the registration dates and renewal deadlines designed to create a false sense of urgency. Others even include official looking invoices indicating payment is required for the application to proceed or to complete the renewals. Some of these solicitations also contain warnings that an undisclosed business has applied to register the owner's mark and warn the owner they could lose all of their rights because they have not federally registered their marks — when in many cases the owner already holds registrations and there are no pending applications as claimed. This latter tactic is often used in the domain name registration context as well. The bottom line for these communications is the sender seeks payment in exchange for something of dubious value.