US Patent Office Warns of Unauthorized Changes to Trademark Applications

The United States Patent & Trademark Office on August 8, 2019, issued an alert to U.S. lawyers warning that unauthorized changes have been made to a number of active trademark applications and registrations by bad actors. The Office warned that these changes may be part of a scheme to register the marks of others on third-party “brand registries.”

We have not been informed that any of the trademarks we handle have been affected.

However, if you receive any suspicious or unusual communications regarding any of your trademarks, or if you would like us to review any of your trademark files to attempt to determine whether any of your trademarks have been affected by this hack,  please contact us so that we may investigate and notify the USPTO if necessary.

In view of such issues at the USPTO, we recommend that you periodically monitor your registrations for unusual activity.  If you would like us to perform such periodic reviews, please contact us to discuss the scope and cost of such.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at (815) 633-5300.