Trademark and Renewal Scams

Those that have applied or registered for patents or trademarks will have probably received additional letters asking for further fees to list your registration on their database.

These letters are dressed to look like official requests but on closer inspection are usually a scam designed to extract further money from the applicant whilst conferring little (if any) benefit.

These types of scams are increasing and as a firm we are now explicitly warning our clients about these scams during the application process and afterwards.

As with this announcement, The Intellectual Property Office and OHIM (the European Trademark registry) continue to try to combat these scams by publicising details of the most recent senders.

The Intellectual Property Office was also successful in its recent action for trademark infringement against one of the senders of these letters, a course of action which may well be repeated here.

In the meantime, if you received any correspondence regarding trade marks or patents which you are not expecting, please check the letter carefully and if you are unsure of its authenticity, contact your solicitor or the IPO directly.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has been made aware that a Latvian company was planning to use the IPO’s own trading name on renewal ‘reminder’ letters asking for money for renewing UK patents and trade marks.

The IPO is sending a warning to all patent and trade mark owners who are due to renew their patents and trade marks in the coming months. We ask all such rights holders to be vigilant.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/warning-intellectual-property-office-alerted-to-new-renewal-scam