AI-Powered Trademark Scams and Brand Impersonation in 2026

At a recent event attended by BrandShield, there was a lot of conversation around one topic in particular. Trademark scams are no longer an occasional nuisance, but instead have become a sophisticated, high-volume threat that targets brands, legal teams, and IP owners with alarming precision. What once looked like poorly written emails or obvious fraud attempts has transformed into polished, convincing campaigns that are increasingly difficult to spot, even for experienced professionals.

Across industries and geographies, we’re seeing the same trend: trademark-related scams are scaling faster than traditional defenses can keep up. And the consequences are no longer limited to administrative frustration,but more concerning is how these scams now impact brand trust, internal operations, and in some cases, customer relationships.

The New Face of Trademark Fraud

Historically, trademark scams followed predictable patterns. Fake renewal notices sent by mail. Unofficial registries that mimicked government agencies. Basic cold outreach designed to pressure brand owners into paying unnecessary fees.

Today, those tactics obviously still exist but they’ve been upgraded.

Modern trademark scams are multi-channel, targeted, and often personalized. Fraudsters impersonate attorneys, law firms, trademark offices, and even internal executives. They’re using names and bar information of attorneys without their knowledge or consent. Emails are being timed to align with real filing milestones. Logos, signatures, and formatting can all be cloned with near-perfect accuracy. In fact, in many cases, a business owner’s first contact with a scammer is when they unknowingly pay one of them to do something simple like design a logo after seeing an online ad. 

Some of the most common scam types we’re seeing 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 offering bulk services that provide little to no real protection
• Targeted phishing campaigns aimed at legal, finance, or brand teams

What makes these scams especially dangerous is not just how convincing they look, but how precisely they’re aimed.

 

Why These Attacks Are So Effective

Trademark data is public by design. Filing dates, ownership details, legal representatives, and jurisdictions are all easily accessible. Scammers exploit this transparency to build highly targeted campaigns that feel legitimate because, in many ways, they are grounded in real data.

Now add AI on top of that, and the problem escalates quickly and significantly.

AI-generated content allows fraudsters to produce convincing emails, documents, and even websites at scale. Language errors and spelling typos that were once a telltale sign of fraud are disappearing. The messaging has become a lot more sophisticated and can be customized by jurisdiction, industry, or even individual brand. 

The result is a threat environment where traditional red flags are no longer reliable.

Counterfeit Monitoring Alone Isn’t Enough Anymore

For years, brand protection strategies focused heavily on counterfeit products and unauthorized sellers. While those threats remain important, they represent only one small piece of a much larger puzzle. 

Trademark scams don’t always involve products at all. Many are designed to exploit trust between brands and their legal partners, between companies and their employees, or between brands and their customers. 

Executive impersonation, for example, has become one of the fastest-growing scam categories. Scammers pose as C-suite leaders or decision-makers to push urgent requests or payments. These attacks don’t breach systems, they literally bypass them by manipulating people.

That’s why simple monitoring of marketplaces alone is no longer sufficient. Brands need a lot more visibility across email, domains, social media, search ads, and other digital channels where impersonation and fraud can surface.

Who Owns Protection, Legal or CISO’s

One of the biggest challenges trademark scams expose is an organizational gap. Legal teams are responsible for trademarks, filings, and enforcement. Security teams focus on infrastructure, networks, and internal systems. But trademark scams live in the space between those functions. They don’t simply hack servers, they exploit brand identity.

In reality, its a very gray area. Fake trademark notice isn’t a traditional cyberattack, yet it can cause financial loss. An impersonated attorney may not trigger security alerts, yet the damage can be very real. 

 

As a result, more organizations are beginning to view brand protection as an external cybersecurity issue, one that requires a complete collaboration between legal, security, and brand teams.

The Red Flags Brands Should Be Looking For

As trademark scams continue to evolve, there are a few signals and trends brands should pay close attention to:

• Increased impersonation of individuals, not just organizations
• Increased use of AI-generated language that sounds both professional and authoritative
• Multi-channel campaigns, where email, websites, and ads reinforce each other
• Time-sensitive pressure tactics that can be used for filing documents by a certain date etc
• Greater geographic reach, with scams crossing jurisdictions effortlessly

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 may already be done financially, operationally, or reputationally.

It is essential for brands to shift themselves to be forward-looking and proactive, more than reactive.  That means identifying impersonation patterns early, clustering related threats, and understanding how campaigns operate, not just taking down individual instances, one by one.

It also means recognizing that trademark protection is no longer just about enforcement after the fact. It’s about anticipating abuse before it reaches its target.

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 only expand.

For brands, the key question is no longer if they’ll be targeted or when, but whether they have the visibility, the tools and the manpower needed to respond quickly and effectively.

It is without doubt, that those that adapt their approach now, by treating brand abuse as a broader risk to trust and security will be better positioned to protect their IP, their people, and their reputation in the years ahead.