Registered a trademark in the Benelux? Beware of Trademarkpublisher.info invoices!
If you own a domain name with a generic extension (.com, .net. org, .info, .biz), you’ve probably already received letters from Domain Registration of America. They look like invoices for domain registration renewal, but are in fact requests for domain transfer – if you sign and pay you’re stuck with their higher fees.
A similar controversial business is being run by Trademarkpublisher.info, sending out invoices to trademark owners. I received an invoice of €795 (for a Benelux trademark that I no longer own).
If you read the terms and conditions (pdf), you’ll notice that the actual service they sell for this hefty price is the “publication” of your trademark. Which is kind of… unnecessary, since your trademark is already published by the Trademark registration office itself.
The blog posts I found about Trademarkpublisher.info all seem to be Australian. Apparently they have now expanded their “market” and bought an old (it’s already 5 years since I transferred ownership) database of Benelux trademark owners… The letter (pdf page 1, 2 and envelope) looks like a (perfectly bilingual) Belgian invoice, and they have a Belgian Bank acount (while registered in Vienna, Austria). If you or your company received one of these, just be aware that this is not an invoice for renewing your trademark registration…
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5 Comments »
April 26th, 2011 at 09:35
Tought Unizo took action against these practices?
December 6th, 2011 at 20:12
Just got an invoice too, however this time from EPTR-register.com Exactly the same fake invoice and the website a copy of trademarkpublisher.com
Beware people, eptr-register is a big SCAM!!!
February 14th, 2012 at 11:49
Hier ook een brief van eptr-register.com. Duidelijk een geval van oplichting. Een Poolse anonieme envelop met een brief die van “Euopean Patent and Trademark Registry” zou komen. 960 euro vragen ze…
November 22nd, 2012 at 12:27
Same here – no way to shut these guys down?
April 16th, 2013 at 12:47
Zojuist ook eentje in Nederland ontvangen. € 875,00 is toch geen geld eigenlijk om je informatie nog eens bij hun onder te kunnen brengen ??
Postbus in Rotterdam en Oostenrijks BTW nummer; denk dat ik hem toch maar niet betaal !!