Three pieces of mail you should toss immediately
Having a business is tough, especially when for-profit businesses pose as government agencies to scare you into buying stuff you don’t need.
Here are a few things to ignore:
1. Labor law posters. Often shortly after filing, companies get solicitations that say “Compliance Notice. Your business is required by Federal Law to post a current compliant labor law notice in the workplace.” They then offer to sell you posters for hundreds of dollars.
Here is where you can get them for free:
PS: you don’t need them until you have employees.
2. Letters from foreign domain registrars (lately especially China). Please do not contact the firm in China or Hong Kong that is offering to register your company name with foreign suffixes (.hk or .cn). If your business needs one of these, we will have discussed the better protection strategy of filing foreign trademarks.
3. Trademark renewal notices. US Federal trademarks need to be renewed every 10 years. The filing fee is currently $200 per class. Many of my clients get offers to renew for thousands of dollars. The US Patent and Trademark Office does not mail reminders. They will email your attorney or send a notice from their Alexandria, VA office. They may be called compliance fees or compliance companies. For more information: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-getting-started/caution-misleading-notices.
Again, if something seems fishy, call me to confirm.
