Trademark Scammer Sentenced

On September 15, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a Latvian citizen was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison for masterminding a trademark mail fraud scheme. Rhett DeHart, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina, also announced that defendant Viktors Suhorukovs has been ordered to pay $4.5 million in restitution to victims of his fraud scheme.

This case is significant because it is the first major criminal prosecution which resulted in a sentencing of a IP mail fraud case in several years. The last notable one was in 2017, when three California men were sentenced to jail time and ordered to pay over $3 million in restitution to their scam victims.

These cases are promising, but the fact there are hundreds of these scammers worldwide which costs business in the millions of dollars in damages resulting from the fraud, there is still much work for the USPTO and the DOJ in order to have a deterrent effect.