Is That Trademark Letter or Email Really From the USPTO?

A federal trademark filing is public, and the USPTO warns that scammers "exploit publicly available information" to send notices that look official. Our main copyright and trademark law page explains what a registration does; this page explains how to tell a real USPTO notice from a solicitation, what to do with a suspicious call or email, and where the USPTO says to report it. Everything here comes from the USPTO's own scam guidance, and no private company is named.

How to Check a Suspicious Trademark Notice, Step by Step

1. Do not pay, sign or call back yet. The USPTO says scammers pressure you to act immediately and threaten loss of rights.
2. Look at the sender. USPTO emails sent directly to you end in @uspto.gov, and USPTO websites end in .gov; the official domains are USPTO.gov and my.USPTO.gov.
3. Open your record in TSDR. Enter the serial or registration number in Trademark Status and Document Retrieval and check the documents tab. The USPTO says official communications are uploaded there.
4. Compare the deadline. Check the status and your real deadlines in TSDR against what the notice claims. Our page on what your TSDR status means explains what you will see there.
5. Confirm by phone with a number you look up yourself. Call the Trademark Assistance Center at 1-800-786-9199, or the number in the signature block of your most recent office action.
6. Report it. Send suspicious emails, as attachments, to [email protected].

What Do Real USPTO Notices Look Like?

They come from the examining attorney or post-registration examiner assigned to your file, and they are part of the record. The USPTO's scam page says official communications, "including office actions or letters with requests for payment or other information, are always uploaded to TSDR under the 'documents' tab. If it's not in TSDR, it's not an official communication." Emails sent directly to you by the USPTO end in @uspto.gov.

The timing should also make sense. Office actions arrive after examination begins, and the USPTO's wait-times data, discussed on our page about how long trademark registration takes, shows months pass before an examiner first acts. Maintenance filings come years later: a Section 8 declaration is due between the fifth and sixth anniversaries of registration, with renewals before each tenth. Our page on trademark maintenance deadlines and fees lists the real dates, and a notice claiming your registration expires sooner than those dates is a red flag.

What Are the Common Fake Notices?

The USPTO groups them into a few patterns:

• Official-looking solicitations by mail. Notices warning of fines or loss of rights unless you use the sender's service. The USPTO says they may use words like "United States," "Trademark," "Office" or "Agency" in their names, and that the fine print often says the company is not a federal agency. Its list of example solicitations includes some that impersonate government agencies.
• Renewal and "invoice" scams. Demands to pay an invoice or renewal fee immediately to avoid cancellation. The USPTO says it does not issue invoices and does not call, mail or email registrants demanding renewals or payment.
• Imposter emails. Messages that use your serial number, registration number or mark, forward a fake chain from an examining attorney, and claim more filings or fees are due, often with an offer to "help" for a fee.
• Spoofed websites. Copies of USPTO.gov or my.USPTO.gov built to collect personal or payment information.
• False claims by filing services. The USPTO lists claims such as being approved by or in partnership with the USPTO, being able to expedite examination, or that you will not own your rights unless the company files for you.
• International registration notices. For notices about international applications and registrations, the USPTO points to the World Intellectual Property Organization's own warning about requests for payment of fees. If you have filed abroad, our page on protecting a U.S. trademark in other countries explains which offices actually charge you.

These schemes can bring criminal consequences. The USPTO reports that in 2021 a federal court in South Carolina sentenced a man to more than four years in prison and ordered over $4.5 million in restitution after he pleaded guilty to mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1341, in renewal solicitation scams run under names that imitated the USPTO's. The evidence showed the registrations were never renewed and legally could not have been.

What About Phone Calls From the "USPTO"?

Treat them with suspicion. The USPTO says scammers use fake caller ID, sometimes with the names, numbers and locations of real USPTO employees, to demand payment or personal information. Its examples include callers claiming your application will not be assigned to an examiner because fees are missing, and calls to owners of recently abandoned applications telling them to pay a "preferred service" or "partner organization" to file a petition to revive.

The USPTO's answer: its employees will never ask for personal or payment information by phone, it has no preferred services or partner organizations, and a petition to revive can only be filed through the USPTO's electronic filing system. If your application really is abandoned, our page on what to do after a missed office action deadline explains the petition and its two-month window. If you get a suspicious call, the USPTO says to hang up, call the Trademark Assistance Center to verify, give them the number that called if you have it, and check TSDR.

Can Someone Take Over Your Trademark Record?

The USPTO describes one scheme aimed at e-commerce brand registries. Scammers file a request to change the correspondence email in your trademark record so that verification codes from an online marketplace go to them. The USPTO automatically emails the current address on record, from [email protected], whenever it receives a request to change it. If you get that alert and do not recognize the new address, the USPTO says to reply to the TEAS mailbox and say you did not authorize the change.

The USPTO also recommends monitoring your record in TSDR and setting up a customer docket and alerts in your USPTO.gov account. Ownership changes are recorded separately, through the USPTO's Assignment Center; our page on recording a trademark assignment explains what a recorded transfer shows. And never share your USPTO.gov password: the USPTO says an attorney who represents you must file from their own account, and anyone who says otherwise is likely a scammer.

How Do Scams Overlap With Filing Services?

Some solicitations come from businesses offering to file or respond for you. The USPTO says its rules require anyone offering filing services on behalf of others to be a U.S.-licensed attorney, that non-attorney "agents" cannot give legal advice or represent you, and that it may restrict a rule-breaking firm's USPTO.gov access, strike its filings or even terminate applications. When a non-attorney is precluded from representing applicants, any action it took for you is invalid from the start of the representation. Our page on choosing a filing service or a trademark attorney covers how to check who is doing the work.

What If You Already Paid or Gave Out Information?

Act quickly and keep everything. The USPTO's "What to do if you've been scammed" page says to collect evidence such as the solicitations, emails, receipts and screenshots, then work through a checklist that includes:

• Report the scam to [email protected], attaching the original email if it came by email.
• Contact your bank or card company about disputing the charges.
• Consult a U.S.-licensed trademark attorney to review your application or registration.
• File complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, and with the Federal Communications Commission for a spoofed call.
• Contact your state consumer protection office and Attorney General.
• Report cybercrime to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, and mailed scam documents to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
• Report unauthorized practice of law to your state bar, and suspected attorney involvement to the USPTO's Office of Enrollment and Discipline at [email protected].

The same page points to the USPTO's Trademark Decisions and Proceedings search tool, which shows whether your file has been affected by a sanctioned attorney or entity. Then check what still needs doing. A fake renewal company cannot renew your registration, so confirm in TSDR that the real filing is made on time; our page on what a federal trademark costs from filing to renewal lists the actual government fees.

What Changes the Answer

• A matching TSDR document. If the notice appears in TSDR, it is official; respond by its deadline.
• A pending office action. Call the number in the office action's signature block to confirm an email from the examiner.
• No examiner yet. If your application has not been assigned, the USPTO says to call the Trademark Assistance Center instead.
• A real attorney of record. Your own attorney may send you reminders; check that the attorney listed in TSDR is someone you hired.
• A letter from another brand owner. A cease and desist letter comes from a business or its lawyer, not the USPTO, and is not a scam just because it is unofficial; see our page on what to do after a trademark cease and desist letter.
• Foreign filings. Notices about international registrations fall under WIPO's warnings, not only the USPTO's.

A Worked Example

Common Mistakes

• Trusting a notice because it quotes your serial number. Filing data is public; scammers use it to look credible.
• Calling the number on the notice. Use the Trademark Assistance Center number or the one in your office action.
• Paying a "renewal" years early. Check the real maintenance dates in TSDR first.
• Sharing your USPTO.gov password. An attorney files from their own account.
• Ignoring a change-of-email alert. Reply to the TEAS mailbox if you did not authorize it.
• Throwing the notice away after paying. Keep it; it is evidence for every report on the USPTO's checklist.

What to Do This Week

1. Look up each of your marks in TSDR and note the status, the correspondence email and your next deadline.
2. Confirm the correspondence email is one you check, and that the attorney listed, if any, is yours.
3. Set up a customer docket and alerts in your USPTO.gov account.
4. Tell whoever opens the mail that the USPTO does not send invoices or renewal demands.
5. Forward any suspicious notice to [email protected], attaching the original email.
6. Calendar your real Section 8 and renewal dates.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the USPTO Ever Call About a Trademark Application?

An examining attorney may contact you about your file, but the USPTO says its employees will never ask for personal or payment information by phone. If in doubt, hang up and call the Trademark Assistance Center at 1-800-786-9199.

Is a Notice With My Real Serial Number Official?

Not necessarily. The USPTO says scammers personalize emails with serial numbers, registration numbers and marks. Check whether the document is in TSDR.

Do I Have to Publish My Trademark in a Private Registry?

No. The USPTO publishes approved marks in its own Official Gazette as part of examination (15 U.S.C. 1062(a)), and its scam guidance warns owners not to be fooled by offers for services that are not required or typically needed.

Can a Filing Company Renew My Registration for Me?

Only a U.S.-licensed attorney can represent you, though you can file your own maintenance documents. In the criminal case the USPTO describes, the scammer did not, and legally could not, renew the registrations he was paid for.

What If Someone Changed the Email on My Trademark Record?

Reply to the [email protected] alert to say you did not authorize it, check the record in TSDR, and correct the information. If a precluded non-attorney appears on your file, the USPTO says to use its Change of Representation form.

Where Can I See Examples of Fake Notices?

The USPTO keeps a list of fraudulent or misleading solicitations that customers have reported, with copies, on its website, and says none of them are official government notices.

Zala IP Law prepares federal trademark filings and maintenance documents and helps owners sort real USPTO deadlines from solicitations. If a notice about your mark has you worried, request a consultation or call 404-313-1701, and have the notice and your serial or registration number ready.