News
Welcome to the latest news on Intellectual Property and Technology matters from Azrights.
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Warning of scams
We are seeing a proliferation of scams - be it by email or telephone about domain name registrations, or false invoices and official looking documents by post aimed at trade mark or patent applicants.
A common domain name scam involves an email purporting to be from Asian or Chinese domain registries.
Another very common scam is fake invoices from trademark registries. Clients are reminded not to pay invoices requesting trademark or patent fees from official bodies as these bodies would not issue invoices.
Both the UK IPO and OHIM routinely send us official warnings that many trademark applicants are receiving letters and invoices from companies inviting them to register trademarks and patents. Although these letters may appear to be “official” they are not. The companies offering such services are not linked to any official trademark or patent office and they do not offer official services so there is no obligation to pay their invoices or buy their services.
What you should do
If you receive such a letter after filing a trademark or patent check it carefully to see what it is being offered and whether it is from one of the following organizations: UK Intellectual Property Office, Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, the United States Patent and Trademark Office or the World Intellectual Property Office.
In general we recommend clients discard such "invoices", but if in doubt please double check with us whether you should pay an invoice.
