Table of contents
- The new face of trademark fraud
- Why these attacks are so effective
- Counterfeit monitoring alone is not enough anymore
- Who owns protection: legal or security
- Red flags brands should watch for
- Moving from reactive to proactive protection
- What lies ahead
- Frequently asked questions
The new face of trademark fraud
Historically, trademark scams followed predictable patterns. Fake renewal notices sent by mail. Unofficial registries designed to look like government agencies. Basic outreach that pressured brand owners into paying unnecessary fees.
Some of those tactics still exist, but the playbook has been upgraded. Modern trademark scams are multi-channel, targeted, and often personalized. Fraudsters impersonate attorneys, law firms, trademark offices, and even internal executives. They use real names and bar information of attorneys without consent. They time messages to align with real filing milestones. They clone logos, signatures, and formatting with near-perfect accuracy.
In some cases, a business owner’s first contact with a scammer happens earlier than people expect. For example, a brand may hire a “freelancer” after seeing an ad, only to discover later that the same operator uses that access and context to run a trademark-related scam against the company.
Common scam types include:
- Fake renewal and deadline notices that appear to come from legitimate authorities
- Attorney impersonation where scammers pose as outside counsel or known legal professionals
- Trademark filing offers that promise bulk services but provide little or no protection
- Targeted phishing aimed at legal, finance, or brand teams
What makes these scams especially dangerous is not only how convincing they look, but how precisely they are aimed.
Why these attacks are so effective
Trademark data is public by design. Filing dates, ownership details, representatives, and jurisdictions are easy to access. Scammers exploit this transparency to build campaigns that feel legitimate because they are grounded in real data. When a message references the correct filing, the correct jurisdiction, and the correct timeline, recipients lower their guard.
Add AI on top of public data and the problem escalates quickly. AI-generated content helps fraudsters produce convincing emails, letters, and websites at scale. The spelling mistakes and awkward phrasing that used to be reliable warning signs are disappearing. Messaging can be customized by jurisdiction, industry, and even by the individual brand’s situation.
The result is a threat environment where traditional red flags are less reliable. Brands need stronger validation methods than “does this look professional.”
Counterfeit monitoring alone is not enough anymore
For years, brand protection programs focused heavily on counterfeit products and unauthorized sellers. Those threats still matter. But trademark scams often do not involve products at all. Many are designed to exploit trust between brands and legal partners, between companies and employees, or between brands and customers.
Executive impersonation is a clear example. Scammers pose as C-suite leaders or decision makers to push urgent requests or payments. These attacks do not need to breach systems. They bypass controls by manipulating people and processes.
That is why monitoring marketplaces alone is no longer sufficient. Brands need visibility across email, domains, social media, search ads, and the broader web where impersonation and fraud can surface and spread.
Who owns protection: legal or security
Trademark scams expose an organizational gap. Legal teams handle trademarks, filings, and enforcement. Security teams focus on infrastructure, networks, and internal systems. Trademark scams operate in the space between those functions. They do not simply hack servers. They exploit brand identity, authority, and trust.
This creates a gray area. A fake trademark notice is not always treated like a traditional cyberattack, yet it can cause financial loss and operational disruption. An impersonated attorney may not trigger security alerts, yet the damage can be real and immediate.
More organizations are now viewing brand protection as an external cybersecurity issue. It requires real collaboration between legal, security, and brand teams, with shared workflows and clear escalation paths.
Red flags brands should watch for
As trademark scams evolve, brands should train teams to recognize behavioral patterns, not just suspicious wording. The signals below show up repeatedly across high performing scam campaigns:
- Impersonation of individuals, not just organizations, including attorneys and executives
- AI-generated language that sounds professional and authoritative
- Multi-channel campaigns where email, websites, and ads reinforce each other
- Time-sensitive pressure tactics tied to filing deadlines or “final notice” language
- Geographic reach that crosses jurisdictions with minimal effort
One operational rule helps: treat urgency plus payment instructions as a high risk combination, especially when the request arrives through a new sender, a new domain, or a new workflow.
Moving from reactive to proactive protection
The scale and sophistication of today’s trademark scams make manual, reactive approaches unsustainable. Often, by the time a scam is reported, damage has already happened financially, operationally, or reputationally.
Brands need to shift from reactive handling to proactive protection. That means identifying impersonation patterns early, clustering related threats, and understanding how campaigns operate, not just taking down individual instances one by one.
BrandShield’s model aligns to this reality. Instead of treating each alert as an isolated case, BrandShield uses AI-powered detection and clustering to connect related activity, then applies human-in-the-loop verification to strengthen evidence and reduce false positives. This makes enforcement faster and more consistent, and it helps teams focus on disrupting campaigns rather than chasing single messages.
Proactive protection also means expanding coverage. Trademark scams touch domains, paid ads, social profiles, fake websites, and impersonation assets. If monitoring only covers one channel, attackers will route around it.
What lies ahead
Trademark scams are not going to slow down. As AI tools become more accessible and digital channels continue to multiply, the attack surface will expand. The key question for brands is no longer if they will be targeted, or when. It is whether they have the visibility, tools, and operational readiness to respond quickly and effectively.
Brands that adapt now by treating brand abuse as a broader risk to trust and security will be better positioned to protect IP, employees, and reputation in the years ahead.
Practical next steps for brand teams
- Define ownership and escalation across legal, security, and brand functions
- Standardize how trademark scam reports are collected, validated, and approved
- Expand monitoring beyond marketplaces to domains, ads, social, and web impersonation
- Measure time to detection, time to action, and recurrence rates
Trademark Violations Explained: Examples, Legal Risks, and How to Stop Them
How Do I Report a Trademark Violation? (Step-by-Step Guide)
Frequently asked questions
What is a trademark scam?
A trademark scam is a deceptive attempt to extract money, credentials, or approvals by impersonating a trademark authority, attorney, registry, or brand executive. Many scams reference real filing data to appear legitimate.
Why are trademark scams getting harder to spot?
Scammers use public trademark data to personalize messages and AI to produce professional language and realistic documents. Older red flags like spelling errors and poor formatting are less common.
Do trademark scams count as cybersecurity incidents?
They often should. Even when no system is breached, the attack targets identity and trust, can trigger financial loss, and may lead to credential theft or downstream compromise.
Who should handle trademark scams inside a company?
Legal, security, and brand teams all have a role. Legal validates trademark context, security evaluates sender and domain risk, and brand teams often see early signals across channels. A shared workflow is essential.
How can BrandShield help reduce trademark scam risk?
BrandShield supports broader visibility across digital channels, helps identify impersonation patterns earlier through AI powered detection and clustering, and enables faster response by standardizing verification and enforcement workflows.