Dear Client, be AWARE. Be CONFIDENT. It is WORTH the effort to be VERY SURE.
Let’s talk TRADEMARKS.
Sorry Dr. Oleg. Your $66,100 loss will have to be addressed in the next article. This issue is too urgent to delay.
——
Do NOT allow yourself to be intimidated.
Do NOT let the trademark scammers chill your desire to protect your intellectual property, to expand its rights in sound, appearance or meaning, to OWN your business name, slogan or logo.
Read about phone call spoofing at https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/spoofing.
Nice short video too.
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On Wednesday, June 24 UNITED STATES PATENTS OFFICE created their domain name. See: https://www.whois.com/whois/united]*****]states]*****]patents]*****]office ]*****] co]*****]m.
On Friday afternoon, June 26 our client filed a for a new $700 ITU Intent-to-Use trademark application at the USPTO, for 2 types of future products.
If our client had thought fast and searched the phone #, they’d find 571-272-1000 really is the USPTO main phone #. That is the SPOOF. To fool the call recipient.
Please see the client’s complaint she wrote to the USPTO on Friday, June 26:
Chris – below is what I filed LAST NIGHT JUNE 26th, AT 4PM EST.
WHAT’S ALSO STRANGE THE TIME STAMP ON MY CALLER ID SAYS 12:18 PM (PST). THAT TIME IS BEFORE I FILED BUT TRUST…..THE CALL ARRIVED MINUTES FOLLOWING MY FILING.
Subject:
ALERT FRAUD CALLER – MY Serial number: 99908441
I CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT minutes AFTER I FILED AND PAID FOR MY TRADEMARK
an aggressive woman called me saying she was assigned my file and she will expedite it all i need to do is explain its usage (unfortunately I did)
She said I needed to file for services. I TOLD her I already paid $700 and I thought that covered goods and services.
She said, I only paid for the GOODS use. SO, SHE NEEDED MY PAYMENT INFORMATION.
She asked where I was going to sell the product and I said initially on-line, she said there are different prices for different outlets. It will cost me more if I intend to sell in retail stores/etc.
She said, after I paid to fully FILE my case, that in order to protect my TM globally it would be an additional $4,000 then she would grant me authority to use the TM next to the brand name
within 24 hours and she would send me confirmation of the call, payment and authorization to use the TM following the brand name.
But the more she talked over my questions I grew suspicious.
She ended by handing up on-me when I said – THIS IS A SCAM. YOU ARE A FRAUD.
CALLER ID DISPLAYED -PATENT & TRADEMARK
from – 571-272-1000
at 12:18 pm (PST)
on JUNE 26, 2026
USPTO, one of our clients, below, received a cyber scam email
from someone trying to impersonate the USPTO. Please see email she
received TODAY from a domain created at DYNABOT 2 DAYS AGO!
I have reason here to believe the scammers we are all battling
have found a way to hack the USPTO web site in REAL TIME. How else could
they have called her MINUTES after submitting her trademark application
YESTERDAY June 26? Our client’s trademark is TUCK-A-WAY (SN99908441).
However, I am at a loss to explain why the spammer spoof call was received
at 12:18pm PST, while the USPTO time stamp was 12:59pm PST. Client caught
this issue too. See below, please!
TIMELINE
1) Trademark filed at 12:59pm PST. (USING PST. Client lives in Palm Springs. I am in California.) See: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn99908441&docId=APP20260626155932&linkId=1#docIndex=0&page=1.
The oddity is the mismatched times.
Does anyone reading this have an explanation for the gap in submission time and a call receive before final payment? I have not been able to verify with the client of she lingered on the USPTO web site before paying for her 2-class trademark.
—–
We say criminal for FOUR reasons,
1) they do NOT do normal trademark
services AT ALL,
2) they use FAKE verification at verify.me to create FAKE
accounts for their victims so they can control access and communications
with the USPTO,
3) they list their own emails on every application to intercept
communications to the USPTO and control the trademark filing,
4) they FORGE business owner signatures at the USPTO which is a criminal act
punishable with 2 years in jail and $10,000 fine EACH TIME. When the
USPTO discovers each of these fraudulently filed trademarks, they
unilaterally terminate them. No recourse for the business owner.
Just shame as the terminated trademark filing is public record forever.
This is an obvious scam because
1) USPTO Examining Attorneys takes 6-7 months to even get to a new trademark application, NOT MINUTES, NOT DAYS,
2) IF there is an issue, an Office Action is formally sent AND posted on the USPTO web site so it can be verified by the applicant and seen by the rest of the World,
3) the USPTO does NOT CALL people,
4) The USPTO web site ends in .GOV not .COM and
5) there is NOTHING to VERIFY, as the premise of their email falsely claims.
Lastly, #6 trademarks are accomplished on a country-by-country basis, except the 27 countries in the EU and 17 countries in the African Union. There is NO SUCH thing as a “Global trademark”. The USPTO has no jurisdiction to grant trademark anywhere outside the USA. They are a part of the Department of Commerce. In our client’s case her only intention is to sell in the USA. Nowhere else. IF she was to sell elsewhere, that is for her to decide, her attorney, her consultant to advise what fits her business. The USPTO does not give advice, legal or marketing.
——-
Yes, there is more.
From: james@united]*****]states]*****]patents]*****]office ]*****] co]*****]m.
Date: June 27, 2026 at 5:10:12 AM PDT
Subject: USPTO TRADEMARK VERIFICATION REQUIRED
Dear [Client’s name here]
Congratulations!
Your trademark application for the mark ” TUCK-A-WAY” has been successfully filed under serial number “99908441“.
Your application is now ready for the verification stage. To proceed, we would like to arrange a brief verification call to confirm the application details and ensure that the review process continues without delay.
To assist with scheduling and coordination, Peter Wilson will be available to help arrange a convenient time for the call.
Contact Details:
Name: Peter Wilson
Contact Number: (571) 207-7263
Appointment Number: 376A
Please contact Peter Wilson at your earliest convenience and provide both your trademark serial number and appointment number when reaching out. This will allow him to locate your file promptly, schedule the verification call, and coordinate the necessary arrangements.
Once your availability has been confirmed, Peter will assist in arranging the session and providing the relevant scheduling information.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Thanks & Regards,
James Hill
Federal Examining Officer
United States Patent & Trademark Office
——-
PS: if you are wondering why the scammer domain had to be broken up, See: james@united]*****]states]*****]patents]*****]office ]*****] co]*****]m, it is because at 1:30am Sunday morning when this article was written and attempted to go out, Constant Contact refused to send it. Apparently, IF we mention a fraudulent web site, in this case Smith and Johnson BOTH Constant Contact and TradeMark Express will be subject to being email backlisted this article, Smith and Johnson are completely removed as they appeared in an earlier article.
Here’s what Shannon Moore found out.
Constant Contact uses automatic safety filters that flag the actual words of known scam websites. So even if you break the URL up with brackets, the system still detects the forbidden text and stops the email from sending.
Also, if you’re copying/pasting from Word, another site, etc., the underlying code is being copied over — always ‘paste in plain text’ or ‘paste without formatting’ — doing so will remove that underlying code.
They recommended hosting an alert on the TME website and linking to that, e.g., “A known predatory trademark scammer is actively targeting businesses with look-alike domains. We have published the full list of these fraudulent websites and how to spot them on our blog. Please view the [Official Trademark Security Alert on Our Website] to protect your company from these unauthorized solicitations.”
AI recommended embedding an image or spelling things out phonetically — not sure if CC would be fine with these but, if you don’t like the above, might be worth a shot.
“A fraudulent entity is sending out fake trademark notices using various look-alike web addresses. To ensure you do not accidentally visit or pay these scammers, we have pictured the specific web addresses they are using below. If you see any of the domains shown in this image, delete the message immediately:”(Insert a screenshot image here showing the list of domains like smithandjohnsoniplaw.com)
“Be on the lookout for fraudulent trademark solicitations using deceptive web addresses. These scammers are combining the names ‘Smith and Johnson’ directly with ‘IP Law’—either smashed together as a single word or separated by a hyphen—and ending in dot-com. Do not open any emails or websites matching this specific word combination.”
—
Kind regards,
Shannon Moore
Lead Trademark Analyst | Trademark Content Strategist
Correspondence via email only: shannon@tmexpress.com
TradeMark Express Blog: https://tmexpress.com/trademark-blog
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonmooresagebright/
650-948-0530
———-
Thank you, Chris DeMassa, Founder – 650-948-0530
Email: staff@tmexpress.com
Web Site: tmexpress.com
Order: https://www.tmexpress.com/order-my-trademark
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TM®SM Crash Course – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gWaAJR5L18
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LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdemassa/
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View Comments
EXCELLENT ARTICLE and fair warning for all of us who must TRUST and DEPEND on the USPTO to secure our Trademark and Patent details.
I really appreciated the timeline given, so I can immediately disregard all these FAKE emails that now arrive multiple times per day. I only filed 4 days ago and continue to get emails with instructions and demands and numerous phone calls per day. The calls start as early as 6 am (PST) and as late as 9 pm (PST) thus far. I no longer answer my phone - PERIOD. This is a horrible situation.
Thank you, Chris and TradeMark Express, for doing that which the USPTO should be doing to protect the Inventor(s), including the phone companies that issue and allow for call spoofing. WHY is this practice of deception even allowed?
This is a really important warning, thank you Chris and the TradeMark Express team for documenting this so thoroughly. If a government platform can be this vulnerable, the least we can do is protect our clients by making sure they know what to expect. Remember: the USPTO will never call you.