Trade mark owners warned
Trade mark owners are being warned to be wary of any organisations looking to charge for intellectual property (IP) services, following a number of complaints about a fake organisation seeking payment for IP.
IP Australia has received numerous phone calls from trade mark owners recently who have received unsolicited correspondence requesting payment for publication of the trade mark owner’s trade mark details in a register.
IP Australia has stated that the company is not in any way associated with their organization and has no official or government authority.
IP Australia has advised trade mark owners to check whether the service provider is legitimate and to find out what protection, promotion or value the service will provide before handing over any money.
For more information relating to the risks of unsolicited IP services, please visit the IP Australia website.
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A similar warning: About a month or so ago, a domain name registry company in HK emailed, advising that a client of theirs wanted to purchase a range of similar domain names (to the one my company used). They advised that the domain names their client wanted may breach any (registered or unregistered) trademark that my company owned. The company gave me the opportunity, kindly, to purchase the mass of similar domain names first. I understood the email to be a scam, and have heard from other business owners that they have encountered the same thing.