Are You Being Bullied?

Ethical Enforcement Programme 

Standing Up to Trade Mark Bullying

We protect entrepreneurs, start-ups, and small businesses from unfair intimidation by bigger players.

This isn’t just about trade marks. It’s about access to justice, fair competition, and your right to grow. Every small business, start-up or independent entrepreneur deserves to operate without fear of intimidation, exploitation, or unnecessary legal attacks. 

Send us your letter — we’ll review it within 24 hours. 

What is Trade Mark Bullying?

Trade mark bullying occurs when a larger company uses its financial power or legal resources not to enforce legitimate rights, but to intimidate, coerce, or drain a smaller business. The intent is rarely about law; it’s about pressure to make you surrender your brand, slow your growth, or hand over money you don’t owe.

Trade mark bullying is more than a legal tactic; it’s a barrier to fair competition, a threat innovation, and an attack on entrepreneurship.

The Bully’s Playbook

If any of these sound familiar, you’re not imagining it, you’re being bullied.

Obvious tactics

1. Unjustified threats of infringement

This occurs when a party accuses you of violating their trademark, copyright, or patent without a valid legal basis. The goal isn’t protection, it’s intimidation. These threats are designed to make you pause, stop operations, or pay money even when your actions are lawful.

2. Aggressive cease & desist letters with unreasonable undertakings

A "cease and desist" letter demands that you stop a particular action. When it's "aggressive," it uses threatening language and sets very short deadlines. "Unreasonable undertakings" refers to demands that go far beyond what is legally required, such as demanding you hand over your website, pay excessive damages without proof, or publicly admit fault.

3. Frivolous oppositions/cancellations to drain time and cash

Trademark filings can be opposed, and registered marks can be challenged. Frivolous actions have no merit – they are used purely to force costly legal battles and exhaust the smaller party’s resources.  A "frivolous" action is one with no real legal merit, filed specifically to force you to spend money and time on lawyers to defend your trademark, hoping you will reach up to a point that you cannot afford it. .

4. Unnecessary escalation of proceedings

This involves taking a minor disagreement that could be resolved through simple negotiation and turning it into a full-blown, expensive court case. Largerorganizations use this tactic to exploit financial imbalance, creating a situation where small businesses feel compelled to settle regardless of legal merit.  Injunctions / proceedings commenced in foreign tribunals

An injunction is a court order to stop you from doing something. Filing for an injunction or starting a lawsuit in a foreign country (a "foreign tribunal") makes it extremely difficult and expensive for you to defend yourself, especially if you don't do business in that country. The intent is to stretch the opponent’s resources and make defending rights prohibitively expensive.

5. Hopeless appeals filed only to increase pressure

If a court rules in your favour, the losing party can appeal the decision. A "hopeless" appeal is one that has almost no chance of succeeding. The purpose of filing it isn't to win, but to prolong the legal battle, forcing you to continue spending money on legal fees and adding stress.

6. Trade mark hijacking (UK or abroad)

Also known as "trademark squatting," this is when someone registers your brand name as a trademark in a country where you haven't registered it yet. They then demand exorbitant payments to transfer rights  back to you at a high price or use it to block you from entering that market.

7. Domain name hijacking or tenuous domain complaints

"Domain name hijacking" is the theft of a domain name (e.g., https://www.google.com/search?q=yourwebsite.com) from its rightful owner. A "tenuous domain complaint" is a weak or baseless legal complaint filed to try and take ownership of a domain that is rightfully yours, often by claiming it infringes on their trademark.

8. Social media takedowns to silence your presence

This involves abusing the reporting systems on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly Twitter). A party will falsely claim your content infringes on their copyright or trademark, causing the platform to automatically remove your posts or suspend your account. This is done not to protect intellectual property but to disrupt your business and silence you.

Subtle tactics

1. Over-broad IP claims to monopolise common words

This is an attempt to register a trademark for a generic or descriptive word that should remain available for public use. For example, trying to trademark the word "fresh" for fruit.  These registrations aren’t about protecting a unique brand; they’re designed to block competitors from using ordinary terms to describe their goods or services. The effect is chilling: small businesses are forced to rebrand, avoid normal marketing language, or risk costly infringement claims. It’s a subtle but powerful way to limit competition and manipulate the marketplace in their favor.

2. “Evergreening” (endless variants filed to box you out)

This is a strategy where a company files for numerous, minor variations of an existing trademark or patent. By creating a dense web of similar intellectual property rights, they make it difficult for competitors to operate or innovate in the same space without risking an infringement claim.  For example, a brand might register “FreshFruit,” “FreshFruitCo,” “FreshFruit UK,” “FreshFruit International,” and dozens of similar variants. The goal is to make it legally risky and prohibitively expensive for other businesses to operate in the same space without running afoul of these registrations. It isn’t about innovation, it’s about building a legal minefield that discourages competitors and slows down market entry. Small businesses can be trapped, forced to rebrand repeatedly, or simply priced out of normal operations.

3. “We’ll bury you in costs” intimidation

This is a direct and explicit threat rather than a subtle legal manoeuvre. A  financially stronger opponent explicitly threatens that they will prolong litigation indefinitely, file every conceivable motion, and appeal every ruling, not because they expect to win on legal ground but to force financial exhaustion. For smaller businesses that means it can take months or years of legal fees, time spent managing lawyers instead of growing the business and severe mental stress. Multi-jurisdictional pressure campaigns (UK/EU/WIPO)

Instead of fighting in just one country,  some aggressors launch coordinated actions across multiple jurisdictions – the UK, EU and even international bodies like the World Intellectual Property Offices – WIPO. . This forces the target to hire multiple legal teams and fight on several fronts, massively increasing the cost, and significantly increases operational disruption. It’s a sophisticated form of bullying that leverages scale and complexity to overwhelm smaller competitors who lack the resources ro fight on every front. Baseless PR threats to damage your reputation

This tactic takes the battle outside the courtroom. The aggressor threatens to launch a public relations campaign against you, issuing press releases or posting on social media with damaging and often false accusations of theft or unethical behaviour. The aim is to harm your brand reputation and pressure you into settling the dispute quietly to avoid public scandal. It's a form of indirect bullying that targets the public perception of your business, not the legal merits of a case.

4. Questionable customs/border seizures targeting your goods

IP rights holders can record their trademarks with customs authorities to help stop counterfeit products from entering a country. This tactic involves abusing that system by providing customs with misleading information or overly broad claims to get them to seize a competitor's legitimate goods at the border. This disrupts their supply chain, costs them money, and damages their relationships with distributors. It is an indirect but highly effective form of intimidation, creating operational and financial pressure that forces compliance or settlement.

Seen one of these? Send us the letter. We’ll tell you where you stand.

How We Help You Fight Back

Large companies often use aggressive tactics to intimidate smaller businesses, entrepreneurs, or individuals in trade mark disputes.

Our Ethical Enforcement Programme  at Trade Mark Wizards does the following:

• Levels the playing field – We step in and defend small businesses and start-ups against  corporates with deep pockets try to crush them.
• Prevents unfair settlements – We make sure you’re not pressured into giving up legitimate rights just because you can’t afford prolonged legal battles.
• Provides fixed-fee, transparent pricing – We give you clarity and protection to that there are no hidden fees, and no surprises if you can’t afford prolonged legal battles. Offers strategic litigation & negotiation – We pushback in a firm, fair, and effective manner, using law and procedure to stop misuse of power in IP enforcement.
• Stands for advocacy & ethics – We are principled defenders, not just service providers.
• Gives you confidence – Focus on your business, while we handle the bullies

We are not just a service, we are a mission-driven brand differentiator. We are not only experts, but we’re also champions for the underdog.

We respect legitimate brand enforcement. We oppose the misuse of power. That’s the difference.

Mission

Our Ethical Enforcement Programmeisn’t just a service, it’s a stand against abuse of legal power. Every entrepreneur deserves to grow without intimidation. We combine expert strategy, fixed fees, and principled advocacy to level the field. We’re not afraid of giants, just committed to fairness.

Bullies don’t get a pass. Not in the playground. Not in trade marks. Certainly not on our watch.

Why Choose Trade Mark Wizards to fight your corner?

• Regulated by IPReg
• Backed by Lord Sugar
• Senior trade mark attorneys with serious contentious & prosecution expertise
• Fast, human, and transparent, with no legalese walls of text
• Mission-driven, results-focused: we protect the underdog

Meet the team

FAQs

Q : Is this just for start-ups?

A: No. SMEs and growing brands benefit whenever a larger opponent overreaches.

Q : Do you always litigate?

A : No. We prefer smart negotiation. We litigate when it’s the right lever.

Q : Fixed fees. Really?

A : Yes. Clear scope, clear price. If the scope changes, we agree changes first.

Q : Will you review my letter before I hire you?

A : Yes. Upload it for a free 24-hour assessment and next-step options.