Recently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) officially issued a Show Cause Order, naming a trademark agency in Shenzhen and its related personnel, who are suspected of large-scale violation of agency services for U.S. trademarks, with more than 19,000 trademarks involved.

Among these trademarks, about 15,000 have been identified to be revoked or invalidated, and an additional 3,361 active trademarks have also been included in the sanctions list.

This time, the USPTO not only intends to penalize the agency itself, but more importantly, a large number of already registered and currently registering U.S. trademarks may be "re-examined".

1. 19,000 U.S. trademarks exposed

As early as 2021, the USPTO had issued a Statement of Reasons Order against the company. This incident is a continuation and supplement to the 2021 sanctions.

According to official documents disclosed, the USPTO has sufficient evidence to believe that the involved agency has the following serious violations:

1. Non-U.S. practicing lawyers, illegally acting as agents for U.S. trademarks

According to U.S. legal regulations, only U.S. practicing lawyers are qualified to act as agents for others in handling U.S. trademarks. Non-U.S. lawyers and overseas agencies are not allowed to directly operate, submit, or respond to trademark documents. However, in this case, the involved company does not have the qualifications of U.S. lawyers but has been handling U.S. trademarks for others on a long-term and large scale.

2. Impersonating the identity and signature of U.S. lawyers

The USPTO found that the names, qualifications, and signatures of several U.S. lawyers (Yi Wan, Jie Luo, and Shan Zhu) were used in trademark documents. But these lawyers did not actually participate in the review or submission, which is an extremely serious violation of practice and fraudulent behavior in the United States.

3. Providing false information to bypass USPTO supervision

This includes but is not limited to: filling in email addresses that are not the real rights holders, having the agent uniformly receive official emails from the USPTO, and submitting trademark documents in high density and in batches (hundreds in a few minutes).

In response to the above violations, the USPTO has clearly proposed to take the following measures, including but not limited to:

1. Permanently prohibit the institution and any related personnel from submitting trademark documents to the USPTO;

2. Invalidate or not accept all trademark documents submitted by them;

3. Delete all official communication information related to them;

4. Suspend and ban their USPTO.gov accounts;

5. Prohibit the credit cards they use from continuing to pay official fees;

6. Terminate all ongoing related trademark procedures;

7. Continuously take the above measures for similar behaviors discovered in the future.

The ordered party must respond in writing before February 26, 2026 (23:59 EST). If the trademark owner believes that they have been wrongly listed, they also need to submit evidence within the time limit to prove that their trademark documents do not involve illegal behavior.

II. How should sellers respond?

This incident has a wide-ranging impact, involving a large number of Chinese cross-border sellers in the trademarks involved. The consequences are far more than just "trademarks being revoked". The possible chain risks include:

1. Brand filing invalidation: Once an active trademark is revoked or re-examined, the filed brand may be canceled by the platform.

2. Operational restrictions and account risks: Trademark issues may trigger platform risks such as brand abuse and association review.

3. Loss of rights protection capabilities: After the trademark becomes invalid, it is no longer possible to effectively complain about infringement, follow-up sales, and malicious squatting.

4. High cost of reapplication: After losing the original trademark, reapplying for a U.S. trademark requires time and money investment.

Above are some of the exposed trademarks

It is recommended that sellers immediately carry out self-inspection of U.S. trademarks:

1. Immediately check the trademark status

Log in to the official website of the USPTO or use trademark query tools to confirm whether your trademark is on the list involved. If risks are found, it is recommended to temporarily suspend platform brand filing or related operations to avoid triggering joint punishment.

2. Actively respond to the sanctions process

If your trademark is included in the sanctions list, you can submit real evidence to explain the usage and legality according to the requirements of the USPTO within the specified time. At the same time, evaluate the backup registration plan for new trademarks of the same name and category to reduce the risk of business interruption.

3. Choose service providers more cautiously

Cooperate with qualified U.S. practicing lawyers or regular intellectual property agencies: Ask the other party to provide the full name and state lawyer number of the lawyer, and verify the qualifications on the official website of the relevant association. Be highly vigilant against solutions that are "extremely low-priced and abnormally fast".

Finally:

This trademark exposure is not only an impact on individual sellers but also an industry compliance reshuffle.

If you are currently registering a U.S. trademark, or your trademark was registered at a low price a few years ago, it is strongly recommended to conduct a compliance investigation as soon as possible.

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