Author: Boyana Boyadzhieva
In 2015, we published a news article reflecting the increasing attempts to deceive recipients or claimants of intellectual property rights by receiving unsolicited misleading invoices for payment for services from companies with names and contact details through which they could be associated with the EUIPO or other IP office.
This year has once again seen an increase in misleading invoices being sent by post or email to recipients or applicants of IPRs. Be careful and do not make payments until you are sure that the source is official. Many misleading invoices follow the same pattern: a name and/or logo imitating an official IP office, the use of red letters to create a sense of urgency, a missing VAT number, etc. Contact your intellectual property representative if in doubt.
According to Europol, 2% of intellectual property rights holders and applicants may fall victim to this type of fraud each year. In order to combat this problem, the European Police Office has published a guide with recommendations for consumers which can be viewed here – https://euipo.europa.eu/portal/en/news/europol-and-euipo-release-procedure-manual-to-combat-misleading-invoices. Examples of misleading invoices can be found at https://www.euipo.europa.eu/en/designs/after-applying/misleading-invoices.