Fake Trademark Invoices and Official-Looking Notices
Letters and emails that look like government correspondence but are private companies asking for money.
Within weeks of filing a trademark application, most applicants start receiving official-looking mail. It arrives on letterhead, quotes a real serial number, a real filing date and a real deadline, and asks for a payment. Much of it has nothing to do with the USPTO.
Why they know about your application
Trademark applications are public the moment they are filed. Name, address, mark, serial number, classes and dates all become part of a public record that anyone can download in bulk — which is exactly how this site is built. Receiving one of these letters does not mean you have been specially targeted or that anything is wrong. It means you filed.
What makes them convincing
The details are real. The serial number is yours. The deadline often exists. Names are chosen to sound governmental — variations on "patent and trademark", "registration office", "trademark bureau", or an agency-style acronym. Some include a genuine-looking invoice number and a due date designed to create urgency.
What they are actually selling
Usually one of three things: publication of your mark in a private "register" or directory with no legal effect, a monitoring or "watch" service you did not ask for, or assistance with a filing you can make yourself for the official fee. A few take payment and provide nothing at all.
How to check in thirty seconds
Look up your serial number in USPTO's TSDR system. It shows every genuine deadline, every fee due and every document the office has actually sent you. If the notice refers to something TSDR does not show, it is not from the USPTO.
Quick checks
- Does it come from a @uspto.gov address, or a lookalike domain?
- Does TSDR show the deadline or fee the notice claims?
- Does it ask you to pay anyone other than the USPTO directly?
- Is the "service" just publication in a private directory?
- Does the fee differ from the official fee schedule?
Official sources
- USPTO TSDR — check your real status and deadlines
- USPTO: Caution on misleading notices
- USPTO: official fee schedule
Why we do not name companies
These pages describe patterns, not businesses. Some senders of these solicitations are outright fraudulent; others are technically legal private services whose marketing is merely misleading. Telling them apart requires evidence we do not have, and calling a named company a scam is a statement of fact about an identifiable business.
Recognising the pattern protects you just as well. Where a specific operator matters, the USPTO publishes examples of misleading notices and its own sanction decisions — USPTO: Caution on misleading notices.