UK Trademark Scams: Protect Your Business

Every year, thousands of UK business owners receive letters, emails, and invoices that appear to come from official trademark bodies. These communications look professional, reference real trademark application numbers, and demand urgent payment. In most cases, they are trademark scams designed to exploit the fact that trademark registers are public and business owners are unfamiliar with the registration process.

The problem has grown significantly over the past few years. Scammers now use publicly available data from the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) and other registers to send highly targeted correspondence. They reference your exact trademark name, application number, filing date, and classes, making the letters appear entirely legitimate. For a busy business owner, distinguishing a genuine UKIPO notice from a convincing fraud can be extremely difficult.

Common trademark scams include fake publication invoices demanding fees of up to £985 for inclusion in private databases, fraudulent renewal notices charging £1,320 or more for a service the UKIPO offers for a fraction of the cost, and threatening legal letters claiming someone is about to file your trademark unless you pay immediately. These scams arrive by post, email, and increasingly through AI-generated communications that are polished enough to fool even experienced professionals.

Trademark scam senders we have investigated

The operators behind these letters change their names regularly. When one gets flagged they rebrand and start again, which is why we keep a permanent record of every sender our clients have reported to us. Each name below links to the full investigation: what arrived, what the public registers actually show, and what to do if you have had one.

• Jones Hedley: a real Cardiff law firm, authorised since 2017, whose name and address appear on a trademark website registered on 26 October 2026, built like the Applegate and Hear Law sites and whose terms say it is “not a law entity”
• Applegate Legal Services: a real, newly authorised law firm whose name was put on the same 72-hour “Formal Notice Regarding Potential Business Name Rights”, sent from a website registered the evening before and using the phone number from the Hear Law notice
• Hear Law: a real, newly authorised law firm whose name was put on the same 72-hour “Formal Notice Regarding Potential Business Name Rights”, sent from a website registered the evening before
• Fenrick & Stone: a real Bradford law firm whose name was put on the same notice; the firm has said publicly that it did not send it
• RSK Legal — a “Formal Notice Regarding Potential Business Name Rights” with a 72-hour deadline, sent from a domain registered thirteen days earlier
• St Nic’s Legal Services — a “Legal Notice on Business Name and Domain Rights Conflict” email
• Knighton Legal Services — a “Legal Notice on Business Name and Domain Conflict” email
• MA & Co Law — a “Legal Notice” email about a competing business name
• Trademarkium — a “UK Registration Documentation” email
• Trademark Center UK — a “United Kingdom Brand Registration Profile” email
• Alethea Law — a trademark website using the name of a real law firm
• Trademark Dept — a “UK Trademark Registration” email
• Prestige Marks and Trademark Axis — unsolicited trademark emails under two linked names
• Trademark Filers and Trademark Genius — unsolicited trademark filing offers under two linked names
• Distinction Law — a letter about your trademark on legal-looking letterhead
• OMPS — a “trademark publication” letter requesting payment
• VPS — a “trademark publication” letter requesting payment
• EUIPA — a letter from the “European Intellectual Property Agency”, a body that does not exist
• WIPOT — a letter from the “World Intellectual Property Office for Trademarks”, a body that does not exist
• Stern Young & Partners and Cohen Klein & Associates: the same trademark renewal letter under two names, from the same director, at several times the official fee

You may also have seen letters using the name TPS. That one, and the pattern behind all of these, is covered in our guide on how to spot trademark scams before they cost you.

At The Trademark Helpline, we have built one of the UK’s largest libraries of confirmed trademark scam senders. This page serves as your central resource for identifying and understanding these scams. Below, you will find our growing collection of detailed investigations into specific scam operations, including real letter examples and step-by-step breakdowns of how each one works.

If you have received a suspicious trademark letter, do not panic and do not pay. Forward it to our team and we will tell you within minutes whether it is genuine. You can book a free 15-minute call or email us directly at enquiries@thetrademarkhelpline.com.