'Trademark Compliance Center': a $385 monitoring service that never monitored anything
In December 2016 the U.S. Department of Justice announced the case of two Glendale, California men, Artashes Darbinyan and Orbel Hakobyan, who pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money laundering charges over a mass-mailing scam run under the names Trademark Compliance Center and Trademark Compliance Office. For $385 the companies promised to monitor for infringing marks and to record registrations with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. About 4,446 people paid roughly $1.66 million, and the services were never performed.
- Year
- 2016
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Convicted
- Reported loss
- $1.7 million
- Victims
- 4,446
- Schemes
- Trademark solicitation scams
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-20
The facts, as recorded
- The operation ran as 'Trademark Compliance Center' and 'Trademark Compliance Office', targeting owners who had recently filed trademark applications.
- The fee was $385 for monitoring newly filed marks that might infringe the customer's and for recording the registration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
- The companies took the fees but did not perform the monitoring or record any registrations with customs.
- About 4,446 people paid a total of roughly $1.66 million.
- The scheme used other people's identities to open virtual offices in the Washington, D.C. area and to open bank accounts used to launder the proceeds.
- Darbinyan and Hakobyan were arrested and pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money laundering charges.
- The USPTO cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation.
Why this case matters
This case is the model of the solicitation that offers a real-sounding service rather than pretending to be the government. A small monitoring fee, well below a lawyer’s rate, sent to thousands of people, is easy to pay without a second look. Nothing delivered, ever.
The money side
The prosecutors’ description includes a laundering component: virtual offices in Washington, D.C. opened using other people’s identities, and bank accounts opened the same way. A “Washington address” on a letterhead is exactly what a recipient uses to judge a sender’s legitimacy.
The caveat
The two defendants pleaded guilty, so the facts above are admitted or established, but this page relies on a law-firm bulletin summarizing the Justice Department’s December 2016 announcement, because the DOJ pages could not be fetched. Sentences are not stated here because they could not be confirmed from a source read for this page. Other individuals named in press coverage of the same case are not discussed here.
Sources
- Trademark Solicitation Scams. Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP. Accessed 2026-09-20. Supports: The company names, the $385 fee and its promised services, the 4,446 victims and $1.66 million, the identity and virtual-office laundering methods, the arrests, guilty pleas and USPTO cooperation.