Business owners should be aware of a new email scam circulating impersonating an intellectual property (IP) representative, containing false information, and offering trademark assistance. This nefarious email scam is sent by an operator impersonating a known Australia registered patent and/or trade mark attorney to garner legitimacy. IP Australia has provided an example of the scam and both IP Australia and the Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys (IPTA) continue to publish alerts regarding this issue.
Thousands of Australians fall victim to email scams each year. In April 2024, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) reported a 64.8% increase in email scams1 between 2022-2023. IP owners are not immune, often receiving misleading renewal notices sometimes causing payment of unnecessary fees to scammers that do not result in renewal of a trademark.
In an already email heavy environment, it is prudent to exercise a healthy level of caution about emails and correspondence sent from an unknown or new external email address. Be aware of these characteristics often associated with fraudulent emails:
- A sense of urgency that require immediate action on behalf of the recipient;
- Typographical errors and incorrect grammar; and/or
- The sender’s email address may be like a legitimate email address but with a letter missing or added.
Where K&L Gates is engaged to manage IP rights, official correspondence will usually be sent directly to our offices. Any correspondence that claims to be associated with a government department such as IP Australia or a foreign trade mark registry should be considered carefully. Business owners should also train staff to recognise false invoices and renewal notices.
As we have previously reported here, encouragingly some jurisdictions are prosecuting these sophisticated criminals by imposing significant fines and imprisonment for their fraudulent trade mark renewal schemes. However, scammers are increasingly prevalent, and it is far less costly to prevent a scam, than to remedy one.
Footnotes:
1 Targeting scams: Report of the National Anti-Scam Centre on scams activity 2023 (Report no.1 April 2024) 15.
