Many of our clients have been receiving unsolicited and misleading trademark notices from non-governmental entities. These unsolicited notices may offer legal services, assistance with filings or other services. Although some services may be legitimate, others are outright scams (for example, offering to record trademarks in a private registry). Many of the solicitations are now taking the form of a notice from an entity with an official-sounding name related to an upcoming filing deadline and a request for payment of a fee. The deadlines may or may not be correct. Some of the notices are intentionally sent out prematurely to get ahead of notices that are sent out by law firms at the appropriate times. These companies are using trademark information obtained from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) databases to mass mail or e-mail these solicitations. You are never required to use the services offered by any of these companies, and we recommend that you discard these notices or report them to the Federal Trade Commission or your state consumer protection authorities.

All official correspondence about your trademark or registration will be from the “United States Patent and Trademark Office” in Alexandria, Virginia, and all e-mails will be from the domain “@uspto.gov.”

The following is a partial list of the entities that have been sending misleading notices:

  • Patent and Trademark Office (2200 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., 4th Floor East, Washington D.C.)
  • Brand Registration Office (Trademark Selection Edition) (Washington, D.C.)
  • GBO, Inc., Trademark and Patent Dep’t (Miami, FL)
  • GLOPAT Global Patents & Trademarks (Bratislava, Slovak Republic)
  • GLOTRADE (Montreal, Canada)
  • GLOTRADE (New York, NY)
  • Intellectual Property Agency Ltd. (London, U.K.)
  • Intellectual Property Services USA Incorporated (Alexandria, VA)
  • IOPR-Intellectual Office Property Register (Beaverton, OR)
  • IP Direct-Registration of the International Trademark (Czech Republic)
  • IPTA Registration of the International Trademark (Brno, Czech Republic)
  • IPTI International Patent and Trademark Index (Czech Republic)
  • IPTO International Patent & Trademark Organization (Brno, Czech Republic)