We all need to redouble our efforts to warn clients about unscrupulous fee requests. Four recent examples reminded me how insidious these fee requests can be. The first one asks me to wire $2322.30 to a bank in Slovakia. The second one asks me to wire $2738 to a bank in Czech Republic. The third one asks me to wire $2548.25 (where do they get these amounts?) to a bank in Slovakia. And the fourth asks me to wire $2327 to a bank in Czech Republic.
Last week, as I reported here, the USPTO granted a trademark registration for Ant-like Persistence. Just a few days have passed and already four of these unscrupulous fee requests have arrived. You can see them here.
WIPO has a page warning about PCT-related fee requests and a page warning about Madrid-related fee requests. USPTO also has a warning page about this, as do some twenty other patent offices around the world.
It’s clear that enough of these misleading requests “succeed”, in the sense that someone actually pays this money, to keep these unscrupulous companies in business. We all need to redouble our efforts to warn clients about this.