Guide · Protect yourself

Trademark renewal scams: how to spot a fake notice

If a letter or email demands money to "renew," "monitor," or "record" your trademark, pause before paying. The USPTO warns that private solicitations can resemble official correspondence. Verify the sender, deadline, service, and fee against official sources before deciding what the notice is.

By RenewMark · Published 2026-07-14 · updated 2026-07-19 · reviewed against official sources

Why you got that official-looking letter

Here's the uncomfortable mechanic behind these mailings: trademark registrations are public record. The moment your mark registers, your name, mailing address, registration number, and renewal dates are published in the USPTO's open database for anyone to scrape. Private companies harvest that data and mail — or email — every new registrant a notice designed to look like an official bill.

The notices use labels such as "trademark renewal," "monitoring service," "registration maintenance," "international registration," or a private "registry." Some offer a real paid service. The important question is whether the sender clearly identifies itself and whether the service, deadline, and fee match what you actually need.

A private notice is not itself proof that something is wrong with the mark. The USPTO maintains a warning page with examples. Compare the sender and requested service with those official materials.

How the USPTO actually contacts you

The single fastest way to unmask a fake is to know how the real office behaves. The USPTO communicates about your registration through a narrow, predictable set of channels — and "a letter demanding a check" is not one of them.

Official correspondence goes to your correspondent of record — the attorney or address on file for your application — not a cold mailing dressed up as a bill.
Emails come from an @uspto.gov address. Anything from a look-alike domain, a Gmail account, or a company name you don't recognize is not the USPTO.
The USPTO does not cold-call you demanding payment, and it will never ask for a credit card number, a wire, or a check over the phone.
Government filing fees are paid to the USPTO through an official USPTO filing system, including Trademark Center. A private service may charge a separate service fee, but its invoice is not a USPTO fee notice.

If a notice has one of these features — a non-USPTO sender, a phone number demanding payment, a check made out to a company, or a private return address — treat it as a third-party communication until you verify it against the official record.

Red flags on the notice itself

Line the notice up against this checklist. These features are reasons to pause and verify; no single feature proves fraud:

Manufactured urgency. A looming "deadline," a "final notice," or a warning that your rights lapse in days — pressure designed to make you pay before you think to check.
A fee that does not match the USPTO schedule. A private company may lawfully add a service fee, but it should clearly separate that charge from the government filing fee and explain what work it will perform.
An official-sounding company name stitched together from words like "United States," "Trademark," "Patent," "Registration," "Compliance," "Agency," or "Office" — engineered to read like a federal body at a glance. (More on this trick below.)
A PO box, private mailbox, or foreign return address rather than the USPTO's Alexandria, Virginia office.
A request to pay by check, wire, or a card number read over the phone — payment methods the real office does not use for maintenance filings.
A private-service disclosure. Language such as "not affiliated with any government agency" confirms the sender is not the USPTO; then decide whether you deliberately want the separate service it offers.

Read every disclosure. A private-service disclaimer identifies a solicitation, but it does not by itself decide whether the offer is lawful, useful, misleading, or fraudulent. Verify the underlying deadline and fee first.

The name game: how they sound official

The most effective trick these companies use is their name. There's no single fake company to memorize; instead there's a pattern. Solicitation outfits assemble impressive, quasi-governmental names by combining authoritative-sounding words:

Geographic and governmental terms — "United States," "U.S.," "Federal," "National"
Subject-matter terms — "Trademark," "Patent," "Intellectual Property"
Bureaucratic terms — "Registration," "Compliance," "Maintenance," "Agency," "Office," "Bureau," "Service"

Snap a few of those together and you get a name that looks like it belongs on a federal envelope. But the name proves nothing — a company can legally call itself almost anything. The real agency uses exactly one name, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and corresponds from uspto.gov. If the sender is anything else, it isn't the office, no matter how governmental the letterhead looks.

What the real fees actually look like

Nothing deflates a scary notice faster than knowing the actual numbers. Maintaining a live registration means filing a Section 8 Declaration of Use between years 5 and 6, and a combined Section 8 & 9 renewal at year 10 (then every 10 years) — each paid directly to the USPTO, per class of goods or services.

Section 8 and Section 9 component fees are currently $325 per class each — verify the exact amounts on the USPTO fee schedule and timing on the official maintenance page. A higher private invoice may include a service fee; it is evidence to investigate, not proof of fraud. See our trademark renewal cost guide for the per-class math.

How to verify any notice in five minutes

Never take a notice's word for your status or your deadline. The authoritative record is free and public — go check it yourself instead of trusting the letter:

Look up your mark on TSDR (Trademark Status & Document Retrieval) at tsdr.uspto.gov. Enter your registration or serial number to see your real status, owner of record, and the exact dates anything is due. New to it? Our how to check trademark status guide walks the lookup step by step.
Compare the notice's "deadline" with the record. If the dates differ, rely on official USPTO sources and investigate the discrepancy before paying.
Confirm the sender. A real email ends in @uspto.gov; a real filing is made at uspto.gov. Anything else is a third party.
Do not pay from the notice until you verify it—but do not ignore a real deadline. Check the official record promptly and act through the USPTO or a representative you deliberately chose.

Our official-source notice checklist organizes the evidence without declaring a document legitimate or fraudulent, and the free deadline checker calculates maintenance dates from the official record when the USPTO data service is available.

What to do if you already paid one

If you already sent money, you're not the first — and it may not be lost. Move quickly:

Dispute the charge. If you paid by credit card, contact your card issuer to dispute it as a misleading or unauthorized charge — the sooner the better. A check or wire is harder to claw back, so call your bank immediately if that's how you paid.
Report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Deceptive solicitations are exactly what the agency tracks, and reports feed enforcement.
Report it to the USPTO. Forward the notice as described on the USPTO's misleading-notices page; the office collects examples to pursue the worst offenders.
Verify your filing was actually made. Paying a solicitation company does not mean your maintenance document was filed. Check TSDR to confirm your real deadline is still open — and if it is, file properly with the USPTO so you don't miss it while chasing the refund.

Paying a private sender is not proof that a maintenance document was filed. Confirm the filing in TSDR and verify the actual statutory deadline before assuming the registration is maintained.

Frequently asked questions

Is a trademark renewal notice in the mail a scam?

You cannot decide that from appearance alone. It may be official correspondence, a private solicitation for a real service, a misleading notice, or fraud. Verify the sender, official TSDR record, deadline, requested service, and USPTO fee before paying.

How do I know if a trademark notice is really from the USPTO?

The real office contacts you through your correspondent of record and emails from an @uspto.gov address; it never cold-calls demanding payment or asks for a check, wire, or card number over the phone. Fees are paid directly at uspto.gov, not to a company's PO box. A different sender, a phone number to call, or an overseas return address means it's a third party.

Are trademark solicitation notices illegal?

A private solicitation can advertise a lawful service, while deceptive or fraudulent conduct may violate the law. RenewMark cannot classify a particular sender from keywords or letterhead. Read the disclosures, compare official sources, and report suspected deception to the USPTO or FTC.

I already paid a suspicious trademark renewal notice — what now?

Confirm what service the sender promised and check TSDR for any filing it says it made. If the charge was unauthorized or the offer was misleading, contact your card issuer or bank promptly and report it to the FTC and USPTO. Do not assume the private payment completed your maintenance filing.

The safest first step is knowing the official record. Confirm the status and calculated maintenance timeline — no account, no email: check your mark →. For a brand your business depends on, a $49/year watch adds independent monitoring, reminders, and links back to the USPTO source.

General information, not legal advice. RenewMark is an independent service and is not affiliated with the USPTO. Fees and rules change — confirm your specifics against the official record at tsdr.uspto.gov and uspto.gov before relying on anything here.