Unsolicited offers: trade mark owners beware!
You are likely to receive unsolicited requests offering trade mark publication, renewal or watching services – a list of the most common companies is set out below. These companies are in no way connected with our firm, our renewals service provider CPA Global (now part of Clarivate) or IP Australia and the services offered may be bogus, or for unnecessary services or at inflated charges. Whilst some of these companies are legitimate organisations which will attend to the actions offered, others are unlikely to, despite payment of fees.
What do they look like?
Many of the letters look official and use accurate trade mark information, including numbers and ownership details. Letters from Patent & Trademark Organisation LLC and TM-Edition are the most regularly received by our clients.
When will I receive these letters?
The unsolicited requests are typically sent:
- after a trade mark application is accepted and advertised in the Official Journal of Trade Marks, offering publication services; or
- prior to renewal of a trade mark registration - usually 1-2 years before renewal is due, offering to renew the registration.
What should I do?
All correspondence and invoices in relation to your trade mark matters will issue through our firm directly or our renewals service provider CPA Global/Clarivate. If you receive any correspondence from another organisation and wish to verify its authenticity, please contact any of the trade mark team.
Sources of unsolicited requests
IP Australia has identified the following companies as being known to send unsolicited requests:
- Commercial Centre for Industry and Trade (based in Switzerland)
- Company for Economic Publications Ltd (based in Austria)
- Company for Publications and Information Anstalt (based in Liechtenstein)
- Edition The Marks KFT
- European Institute for Economy and Commerce - EIEC (based in Belgium)
- Federated Institute for Patent and Trademark Registry, based in Florida, USA
- Gaia Almanach LTD
- Globus Edition SL (based in Spain)
- I.B.F.T.P.R - International Bureau for Federated Trademark & Patent Register
- INFOCOM (based in Switzerland)
- Institute of Commerce, Trade and Commerce (based in Switzerland)
- International Patent and Trademark Register based in Nurnberg, Germany
- IP Data s.r.o (Czech Republic)
- IT & TAG (based in Switzerland)
- Objective Concept (based in France)
- Patent & Trademark Organisation LLC (based in USA with a street address in Melbourne)
- RIPT - Register of International Patents and Trademarks TM Collection (based in Hungary)
- TM-Edition Ltd. (based in Hungary)
- TM Worldwide (based in Hungary)
- TMP, Trade Mark Publishers, Austria but with a street address in Sydney
- UPTS s.r.o (Czech Republic)
- World Patents Trademarks WIPT s.r.o (Czech Republic)
- ZDR-Datenregister GmbH (based in Germany)
This list is not exhaustive and new organisations are identified regularly. Please contact us if you have any concerns, or wish to check the legitimacy of the correspondence/invoice received.