Frequently, following the filing of a trademark application, the Applicant will receive a number of “scam” letters from companies asking for payment of fees. These invoices can demand urgent payment for trademark registration, trademark renewal, trademark watching or trademark registration abroad, for example, a Community trademark application. Many of these letters appear to be official but in fact, they are scams, preying on the unwary applicant, who falls into the expensive trap of paying them.
If you receive letters demanding the payment of fees, it is recommended that you contact us immediately and we can advise whether these are legitimate or not. If you have filed your own UK or community trademark application, please do still feel free to ask for our advice
How is My Information Shared?
The UK and community trademark registers are publically available online and this enables the scammers to obtain the trademark and applicant details. Whilst the availability of this information is valuable in terms of searching for a new trademark and monitoring the progress of your trademark application, it is, unfortunately, not always used in the manner intended.
In addition to scams regarding trademarks, we are seeing a number of email-related scams. Applicants are receiving emails from companies, often based in Asia, advising that they have received an application to register a domain comprising or containing your trademark. For the most part, these email approaches are scams. If you receive such an email, please get in touch and we can confirm whether the approach is genuine or not. We can also assist you with domain name registration and portfolio management, as required.
How we can help you?
The trademark team at Albright IP will be happy to advise and answer any questions that you have regarding “unexpected” invoices and Trademark filing, prosecution and registration generally.